Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant are subject to arrest in 124 countries after the International Criminal Court issued a warrant accusing them of war crimes.
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The International Criminal Court (ICC) on Thursday issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and Mohammed Deif, the alleged mastermind behind Hamas’s Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel.
While the Hamas military chief may already be dead, Netanyahu and Gallant will now be subject to arrest in any of the 124 countries party to the ICC, such as the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Canada. The US is not a party to the so-called Rome Statute, which founded the ICC in 2002.
The Netherlands was one of the first countries to say that it would enforce the warrant.
The ICC is charging Netanyahu and Gallant with “crimes against humanity and war crimes” that they allegedly committed in the aftermath of the attack, in which Hamas fighters killed approximately 1,200 people and took 254 hostages.
“[The ICC] found reasonable grounds to believe that [Netanyahu and Gallant] 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,” the ICC stated.
The warrant also states that Netanyahu and Gallant, who was the defense minister at the time, also committed the war crime of “intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population.”
Israel’s military response to the attack has resulted in tens of thousands of casualties in Gaza, the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, and massive destruction of property.
Netanyahu’s office issued a strongly worded response to the arrest warrant, calling it an “antisemitic decision” that is motivated by “hatred” of Israel.
“Israel utterly rejects the false and absurd charges of the International Criminal Court, a biased and discriminatory political body,” it stated. “No war is more just than the war Israel has been waging in Gaza since October 7th 2023, when the Hamas terrorist organization launched a murderous assault and perpetrated the largest massacre against the Jewish People since the Holocaust.”
Netanyahu’s office also stressed that the prime minister would not yield to pressure and “continue to pursue all the objectives that Israel set out to achieve in its just war against Hamas and the Iranian axis of terror.”
The news was not well received in the US, where lawmakers from both parties blasted the decision and threatened the ICC with retaliation.
“I am calling on the Senate to immediately pass legislation sanctioning this kangaroo court,” stated Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN). “Every individual involved in this decision to attack Israel should face severe repercussions.”
It was not just Republicans who condemned the international court.
“The ICC’s decision to issue arrest warrants against the leadership of Israel represents the weaponization of international law at its most egregious,” stated Rep. Richie Torres (D-NY). “The ICC should be sanctioned not for enforcing the law but for distorting it beyond recognition.”
