International Criminal Court issues arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister

The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant based on allegations that they starved Palestinian civilians in Gaza during Israel’s war against Hamas.

The court on Thursday also issued an arrest warrant against Mohammed Deif, the Hamas military chief whose death has been reported but is not confirmed.

The Hague-based court’s pre-trial chamber decided to issue the warrants based on a recommendation in May by its chief prosecutor, Karim Khan. The court said in a statement that it “found reasonable grounds to believe that Mr Netanyahu and Mr Gallant bear criminal responsibility for the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare.”

The court added, “There are reasonable grounds to believe that the lack of food, water, electricity and fuel, and specific medical supplies, created conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of part of the civilian population in Gaza, which resulted in the death of civilians, including children due to malnutrition and dehydration.”

In a statement, Netanyahu’s office called the prosecutions “antisemitic” and likened them to the Dreyfus affair, the late-19th-century prosecution of a French Jewish officer that was revealed to be an antisemitic plot. The affair spurred the modern Zionist movement.

“There is no war more just” than the war Israel has conducted since Hamas launched the war on Oct. 7, 2023, when it massacred some 1,200 people in Israel, Netanyahu’s statement said. “The decision was made by a corrupt chief prosecutor trying to save his skin from serious sexual harassment allegations,” he statement said. Netanyahu was referring to an investigation of Khan on charges of sexual misconduct.

The Biden administration, which has provided Israel with military aid, has also criticized the warrants.

“Let me be clear: whatever this prosecutor might imply, there is no equivalence — none — between Israel and Hamas,” President Joe Biden said in a statement in May, when Khan sought the warrants. “We will always stand with Israel against threats to its security.”

The warrants will require Netanyahu and Gallant to take care regarding where they travel. The United States, like Israel, is not a signatory to the 1998 treaty that founded the ICC, and even those countries signed to the treaty are notoriously lax in whom they choose to arrest based on the court’s warrants. Still, an arrest warrant has caused even the most powerful of leaders to limit their travel; Russian president Vladimir Putin has traveled only to friendly countries since being place under warrant in March 2023 due to Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Gallant will no longer be travelling internationally as defense minister: Netanyahu recently fired him over differences regarding how to conduct the war.

The last time President-elect Trump was in power, he sanctioned ICC officials over plans to charge Americans with war crimes. President Joe Biden has lifted those sanctions, but Republicans in Congress are calling on Trump to reintroduce them when he returns to office, in part because of the actions against Netanyahu and Gallant.

A separate statement from the ICC noted that Khan had sought the arrest of Deif and other Hamas leaders. Two other Hamas leaders have since been killed, and Deif is believed to be dead, but because his death has not yet been conclusively determined, the court issued the warrant, the statement said.