Judges at the International Criminal Court (ICC) have issued arrest warrants for Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and its former defense minister, as well as Hamas’s military commander.
A statement said a pre-trial chamber had rejected Israel’s challenges to the court’s jurisdiction and issued warrants for Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant. A warrant was also issued for Mohammed Deif, although the Israeli military has said he was killed in an air strike in Gaza in July.
The judges said there were “reasonable grounds” that the three men bore “criminal responsibility” for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity during the war between Israel and Hamas.
It will now be up to the ICC’s 124 member states—which do not include Israel or its ally, the United States—to decide whether or not to enforce the warrants.
The prosecutor’s case against them stems from the events of 7 October 2023, when Hamas gunmen attacked southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking 251 others back to Gaza as hostages.
Israel responded to the attack by launching a military campaign to eliminate Hamas, during which at least 44,000 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.
Arrest warrant for Netanyahu on charges of war crimes
According to the ICC, the chamber “found reasonable grounds to believe” that Deif was “responsible for the crimes against humanity of murder; extermination; torture; and rape and other forms of sexual violence; as well as the war crimes of murder, cruel treatment, torture; taking hostages; outrages upon personal dignity; and rape and other forms of sexual violence.”
It also said there were reasonable grounds to believe the crimes against humanity were “part of a widespread and systematic attack directed by Hamas and other armed groups against the civilian population of Israel.”
For Netanyahu and Gallant, who was replaced as defense minister earlier this month, the chamber “found reasonable grounds to believe” that they “each bear criminal responsibility for the following crimes as co-perpetrators for committing the acts jointly with others: the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts.”
It also found reasonable grounds to believe that “each bear criminal responsibility as civilian superiors for the war crime of intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population.”
Israeli President Isaac Herzog said: “Taken in bad faith, the outrageous decision at the ICC has turned universal justice into a universal laughing stock.”
“The decision has chosen the side of terror and evil over democracy and freedom, and turned the very system of justice into a human shield for Hamas’ crimes against humanity,” he added.
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