The Hague: The International Criminal Court (ICC) on Thursday issued arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes committed during the conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon.
“The Chamber issued warrants of arrest for two individuals, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu and Mr Yoav Gallant, for crimes against humanity and war crimes committed from at least 8 October 2023 until at least 20 May 2024, the day the Prosecution filed the applications for warrants of arrest,” the official statement said.
The Hague-based court further stated that there were “reasonable grounds” to believe that Netanyahu and Gallant “bear criminal responsibility for the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare”. “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,” the three-judge panel wrote in its unanimous decision to issue warrants, AP reported.
The ICC has also charged Hamas’s military head Mohammed Deif as a war criminal and ordered for his arrest. It accused him of crimes including murder, torture, rape and other forms of sexual violence in Israel and Palestine from October 7, 2023.
Claiming that ICC is “antisemitic”, Netanyahu described himself as a victim of a new “Dreyfus Affair”. “Israel rejects with disgust the absurd and false actions and charges against it by the International Criminal Court. There is no war more just than the one that Israel has been waging in Gaza. No anti-Israeli decision will prevent the State of Israel from protecting its citizens,” the statement released by his office said.
Gallant said that the court lost its legitimacy with ‘absurd’ arrest warrants.
In May 2024, ICC’s chief prosecutor Karim Khan appealed in the court to issue the warrants against the Israeli leaders for committing war crimes and crimes against humanity. Israel had rejected the jurisdiction of the Hague-based court and denied war crimes in Gaza.
Israel pounded the Palestinian enclave of Gaza in retaliation to destroy Hamas after the group’s deadliest attack on October 7 last year in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.
According to a report by Human Rights Watch, Israel committed war crimes and crimes against humanity by deliberately causing the mass displacement of Palestinians in Gaza. About 1.9 million people – 90% of Gaza’s population – have fled their homes over the past year, and 79% of the territory is under Israeli-issued evacuation orders, the UN added.