The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued on Thursday arrest warrants for Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, his former Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, and Hamas’ commander, Mohammed Diab Ibrahim al Masri, known as Mohammed Deif, reported the Associated Press (AP).
The arrest warrants accuse them of alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity over Israel’s war in Gaza and Hamas’ October 2023 attack on Israel, respectively.
In their decision to issue the arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant, the ICC judges said that each of them “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.”
They added: “The Chamber considered that there are reasonable grounds to believe that both individuals intentionally and knowingly deprived the civilian population in Gaza of objects indispensable to their survival, including food, water, and medicine and medical supplies, as well as fuel and electricity.”
Meanwhile, the arrest warrant for Deif includes charges related to mass killings during the October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel that triggered the Gaza war. The ICC Chief withdrew his request for warrants for two other senior Hamas commanders, Yahya Sinwar and Ismail Haniyeh, after their death in the conflict.
After the ICC’s decision, Netanyahu, Gallant and Deif have become internationally wanted suspects and are at risk of arrest if they travel abroad. This will likely add more complications to ceasefire negotiations.
However, Israel and its main ally, the US, are not members of the ICC. Therefore, the implications on Israel could be of a limited scale.
In response to the arrest warrants, Netanyahu condemned the decision, rejecting it as “absurd and false actions,” his office said in a statement.
