The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant and a top Hamas leader on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
This is the first time that Netanyahu or any Israeli official has been indicted by an international court for the ongoing war on Gaza.
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In a decision posted online on Thursday, the ICC charged Netanyahu, Gallant and Hamas leader Mohammed Deif over Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel and Israel’s subsequent genocidal war in Gaza. Israel claimed to have killed Deif in July, however. It is unclear whether he is still alive.
Effectively, the defendants are now internationally wanted suspects and ICC member states are under legal obligation to arrest them.
Israeli officials slammed the move, calling it “anti-Semitic”. Here’s what this all means:
What is the ICC accusing Netanyahu and Gallant of?
In a decision posted online, the court said it had issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant for “crimes against humanity and war crimes committed from at least 8 October until at least 20 May, 2024” and which related to the use of starvation and the deliberate targeting of medical facilities.
The court’s Prosecutor Karim Khan first requested the arrest warrants in May. The court says there are reasonable grounds to believe Netanyahu and Gallant bear “criminal responsibility” for causing mass starvation in Gaza.
The court has accused both Netanyahu and Gallant of jointly using “starvation as a method of warfare”, referring to Israel’s systemic restriction of food and humanitarian aid supplies into the Gaza Strip throughout the war.
The ICC further accused the two leaders of the “crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts” and referenced Israel’s deliberate targeting of Gaza’s hospitals and its refusal to allow humanitarian and medical supplies into the Strip.
