Netanyahu denounces bid to arrest him over Gaza war
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vehemently criticized the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court for pursuing arrest warrants against him and Hamas leaders for alleged war crimes during the Gaza conflict.
Netanyahu expressed his strong disapproval, rejecting any comparison between “democratic Israel” and what he termed “mass murderers.”
These sentiments were echoed by US President Joe Biden, who emphasized the distinction between Israel and Hamas.
The ICC’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, stated that there are credible grounds to hold Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant accountable for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
The ICC is also seeking a warrant for Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar for war crimes.
Both Israel and its key ally, the US, are not ICC members, as the court was established in 2002.
The accusations against Israeli and Hamas leaders relate to the events of October 7, during which multiple waves of Hamas gunmen attacked Israel, resulting in approximately 1,200 fatalities and 252 individuals being taken as hostages to Gaza.
The attack triggered the current war, in which at least 35,500 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.
On Monday, Mr. Biden said there was “no equivalence – none – between Israel and Hamas”.
“It’s clear Israel wants to do all it can to ensure civilian protection,” Mr Biden added.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken echoed the president’s condemnation, saying Washington “fundamentally rejects” the move. “It is shameful,” he said. “[The] ICC has no jurisdiction over this matter.”
Mr. Blinken also suggested the request for arrest warrants would jeopardize ongoing efforts to reach a ceasefire deal.
Mr Khan also applied for arrest warrants for Mr Gallant and Hamas’s political leader Ismail Haniyeh, along with the group’s military chief Mohammed Deif.
He said Israel’s prime minister and defence minister were suspected of crimes including the starvation of civilians as a method of warfare, murder, intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population, and extermination.
The prosecutor said the alleged crimes began “from at least 7 October 2023” in the Hamas leaders’ case, when the group launched its attack on Israel, and “from at least 8 October 2023” for the Israeli leaders.
The ICC defended its stance on Monday, saying that despite “significant efforts” it had not received “any information that has demonstrated genuine action at the domestic level [in Israel] to address the crimes alleged or the individuals under investigation”.
A panel of judges at the ICC must now consider whether to issue the warrants and, if they do, countries signed up to the ICC statute are obliged to arrest the men if they have such an opportunity.
Hamas’s deadly attack on 7 October devastated several Israeli settlements
Mr Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, condemned the application to seek his arrest as “an absurd and false order”.
In a public statement in Hebrew, he asked “with what audacity” the ICC would “dare to compare” Hamas and Israel.
The comparison was a “distortion of reality”, Mr. Netanyahu said.
He accused the prosecutor of “callously pouring gasoline on the fires of antisemitism that are raging across the world”.
Israel’s Foreign Minister Israel Katz called the move by Mr Khan an “unrestrained frontal assault” on the victims of the 7 October attacks and a “historical disgrace that will be remembered forever”.
But some of Israel’s Western allies avoided directly criticising the ICC in their statements.
In a statement late on Monday, the French foreign ministry said it supported the court and what it called its “fight against impunity in all situations”.
Similarly, Germany’s foreign ministry said it “respects the independence and procedures” of the ICC.
However, Berlin did criticise the simultaneous publication of the charges against Israeli and Hamas leaders, saying the move “created the incorrect impression of equivalency”.
Hamas earlier made its own demand for “the cancellation of all arrest warrants issued against leaders of the Palestinian resistance”.
“Hamas strongly denounces the attempts of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to equate the victim with the executioner,” the group said.
The group also complained that the application for warrants against Mr Netanyahu and Mr Gallant had come “seven months late”, and that other Israeli political and military leaders had not been named alongside them.
Mr Khan accused the Hamas leaders of having committed crimes including extermination, murder, hostage taking, rape and sexual violence, and torture.