Israeli ministers condemn ICC arrest warrant call as 'scandalous' and 'tantamount to attack on 7 October victims'
Senior figures in the Israeli government have reacted angrily to the announcement that the chief prosecutor of the international criminal court (ICC) is seeking arrest warrants for senior Hamas and Israeli officials for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his defence minister, Yoav Gallant.
Israel’s foreign minister Israel Katz said the move was “scandalous” and tantamount to attacking the victims of 7 October. Reuters reports he said he had opened a special war room to counteract the ICC’s move, adding no force in the world will prevent Israel from bringing back its hostages from Gaza and toppling Hamas.
Finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, said the decision would be “the last nail in the dismantling of this political and antisemitic court,” adding that “arrest warrants [for Netanyahu and Gallant] are the arrest warrants for all of us.”
War cabinet member Benny Gantz, who has recently threatened to pull his party from Israel’s coalition government said “Drawing parallels between the leaders of a democratic country determined to defend itself from despicable terror to leaders of a blood-thirsty terror organisation (Hamas) is a deep distortion of justice and blatant moral bankruptcy.”
Netanyahu and Gallant are accused of extermination, causing starvation as a method of war, the denial of humanitarian relief supplies and deliberately targeting civilians.
The Hamas-led health authority in Gaza has said the death toll from Israel’s military campaign in the Gaza Strip is over 35,500 Palestinians, while Israel says it has lost 282 soldiers since ground operations began. It has not been possible for journalists to independently verify the casualty figures being issued during the conflict.
Aid agencies have widely reported food shortages in the territory, where hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced by Israel’s aerial bombardment, being forced to live in makeshift tent shelters with poor sanitation conditions.
Palestinians walk among the ruins of Khan Younis after months of Israeli bombardment. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images
The move has also been condemned by senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhuri, who said the decision “equates the victim with the executioner” and encourages Israel to continue its “war of extermination” in Gaza. Wasel Abu Youssef of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) said there was confusion over who was the victim, and that “The Palestinian people have the right to defend themselves. The ICC is required to issue arrest warrants against Israeli officials who are pursuing crimes of genocide in the Gaza Strip.”
Hamas leaders and officials Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh were named as being wanted for crimes of extermination, murder, hostage taking, rape, sexual assault and torture.
Hamas and other groups in Gaza are believed to be still holding about 129 hostages of the approximately 250 seized and abducted during the 7 October surprise attack inside southern Israel. Israeli authorities put the death toll caused by the 7 October attack at about 1,140.
In Tel Aviv a picture of Amit Buskila, who was kidnapped from Nova festival on 7 October and whose body was announced retrieved from Gaza by the Israeli army last week, hangs with posters of other hostages kidnapped by Hamas and other groups. Photograph: Shannon Stapleton/Reuters
We’re now closing this blog. My colleague Chris Stein in the US will be following the latest news and reaction on the ICC prosecutor’s decision to seek arrest warrants for Netanyahu and some Israeli ministers in his US politics blog here:
Deputy foreign minister Andrew Mitchell will be asked to explain further on Tuesday when he appears in front of the business committee that is examining the UK decision to continue to sell arms to Israel on the basis that it is not in breach of international humanitarian law.
Karim Khan, the ICC prosecutor, was the enthusiastically backed British government candidate for the post in 2021 and it was regarded as a diplomatic coup for the government to see him elected.
Moreover, it is striking that Khan has been advised in making his decision by a panel of distinguished lawyers – almost all of whom are British.
The government has refused to publish the legal advice that has led them to conclude Israel has not committed a breach of international humanitarian law, but the UK response to the ICC prosecutor’s request is not based on that law but on the disputed issue of ICC jurisdiction.
When the ICC first claimed jurisdiction over Israel’s actions, the then prime minister Boris Johnson said he opposed the ICC’s actions as an attack on Israel. In a letter to Conservative Friends of Israel he said the ICC’s action “gives the impression of being a partial and prejudicial attack on a friend and ally of the UK’s”. He said Palestine was not a recognised state.
In November 2023,Mitchell appeared to draw back from Johnson’s stance telling MPs: “It is not for ministers to seek to state where the ICC has jurisdiction; that is for the chief prosecutor. The chief prosecutor has not been silent on this matter, and I am sure he will continue to express his views.” At a different point he said: “It is not for me to fetter or speak in the place of its chief prosecutor.”
Labour supports the right of the ICC to seek warrants.
The ICC says it may exercise its jurisdiction in situations where the alleged perpetrator is a national of a State Party or where the crime was committed in the territory of a State Party. It ruled in 2021 it had jurisdiction in the Occupied Territories.
UK says it is opposed to arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant
Patrick Wintour
The UK has said it was opposed to the International Criminal Court seeking arrest warrants for Netanyahu and defence minister Yoav Gallant.
In a statement, the foreign office said: “We do not believe that seeking warrants will help get hostages out, get aid in, or deliver a sustainable ceasefire. This remains the UK’s priority.”
The statement added: “As we have said from the outset, we do not think the ICC has jurisdiction in this case. The UK has not yet recognized Palestine as a state, and Israel is not a state party to the Rome statute. It would be premature to respond further before the pre-trial chamber has considered the prosecutor’s application for warrants.”
World affairs editor Julian Borger has this explainer on what happens next with the international criminal court arrest warrant request:
The application for warrants now goes to one of the pre-trial chambers in the ICC, and will be decided on by a panel of three judges. At the moment, the chamber involved is made up of judges, from Romania, Benin and Mexico. It is not a foregone conclusion that they will approve all Khan’s requests, but legal scholars point out that the threshold of evidence for a warrant is just “reasonable grounds to believe”, rather than “beyond a reasonable doubt”, which is the standard for conviction at trial.
Iva Vukušić, an expert on international legal institutions at the Utrecht University, in the Netherlands, said: “The prosecution is not dumb; they would not mess up at this stage at such an important case everyone is looking at. So I believe the judges will agree on the warrants.”
The ICC does not have its own police force or enforcement mechanism, but the warrants would seriously limit the travel options of the indictees. The 124 state members of the ICC would be under obligation to arrest them, and even non-members would come under pressure to carry out an arrest.
In practice, powerful non-members such as the US, Russia and China, would shrug off such pressure. Netanyahu and Gallant, for example, would still be able to visit America. Sinwar and Deif are believed to be in Gaza so beyond reach for the time being. Haniyeh is based in Qatar, which is not a member of the ICC.
A statement from Hamas has denounced the request by the international criminal court’s chief prosecutor for arrest warrants for three of its senior leaders, calling for them to be cancelled.
Reuters reports in a statement the organisation said “Hamas strongly denounces the attempts of the prosecutor of the international criminal court to equate the victim with the executioner by issuing arrest warrants against a number of Palestinian resistance leaders. Hamas...demands the cancellation of all arrest warrants issued against leaders of the Palestinian resistance, for violating UN conventions and resolutions.”
Peter Beaumont has this analysis of what next for Iran after the death of president Ebrahim Raisi:
One indication of the likely trajectory is that the figures appointed to replace Raisi and foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian in the interim as elections are prepared have similar backgrounds: Mohammad Mokhber, a Khamenei loyalist from the conservative camp, will become interim president, and Ali Bagheri Kani will step up from acting foreign minister and is already acting in back-channel talks with the US on nuclear issues.
A statement from the Iran’s strategic council on foreign relations on Monday, in the immediate aftermath of the deaths, also indicated a desire for continuity in the current policies.
“Without a doubt, the path of Iran’s foreign policy will continue with strength and power, under the guidance of the supreme leader,” the statement said. “With their active presence in foreign policy arenas, [Raisi and Abdollahian] did what they could to realise the national interests of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
All of which makes any question of a new direction in Tehran’s foreign policy a longer-term issue, and one that is ultimately tied to who succeeds Khamenei as supreme leader – not least after the death of Raisi, who, along with Khamenei’s son Mojtaba, was seen as a potential leader.
The panel includes Lord Justice Fulford, Danny Friedman KC, Lady Helena Kennedy KC and Elizabeth Wilmshurst KC from the UK, and Judge Theodor Meron and barrister Amal Clooney.
In a key passage regarding Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, the panel’s report says:
As a result of a number of factors, including the imposition by Israel of restrictions on the movement of people and goods from and to Gaza in the aftermath of its 2005 disengagement, Gazans were highly dependent on Israel for the provision of and access to objects indispensable for the survival of the population even before 7 October.
Second, although Israeli officials have a right to ensure that aid is not diverted to the benefit of the enemy and to stipulate lawful technical arrangements for its transfer, they cannot impose arbitrary restrictions – such as restrictions that violate Israel’s obligations under international law, including international humanitarian law and international human rights law, or that contravene the principles of necessity and proportionality -- when exercising these rights.
Third, parties to an armed conflict must not deliberately impede the delivery of humanitarian relief for civilians, including humanitarian relief provided by third parties. And when a territory is under the belligerent occupation of one party to the conflict, there is also an enhanced active obligation for the occupying power to ensure adequate humanitarian aid for civilians, including by providing such aid itself insofar as this is necessary. In the Panel’s view, while it can reasonably be argued that Israel was the occupying power in Gaza even before 7 October 2023, Israel certainly became the occupying power in all of or at least in substantial parts of Gaza after its ground operations in the territory began.
On the situation of charging Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh, it describes Hamas as “a highly organised non-State armed group” and goes on to say:
The Prosecutor seeks arrest warrants against three senior Hamas leaders for the war crimes of murder and the crimes against humanity of murder and extermination for the killing of hundreds of civilians on 7 October 2023. He also seeks to charge them with the war crime of taking at least 245 persons hostage. Finally, he seeks to charge them with the war crimes of rape and other forms of sexual violence, torture, cruel treatment, and outrages upon personal dignity and the crimes against humanity of rape and other forms of sexual violence, torture, and other inhumane acts for acts committed against Israeli hostages while they were in captivity.
After assessing the material provided by the Prosecutor the Panel has concluded that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the three suspects had a common plan that necessarily involved the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The systematic and coordinated nature of the crimes, their scale, statements by the suspects supporting the commission of such crimes, evidence of the sophisticated planning of the attacks and the ideology and past practices of Hamas all support the finding that the common plan was criminal in character.
The Panel additionally concurs with the Prosecutor’s view that Sinwar, Deif and Haniyeh made essential contributions to this plan and that they have through their own words and actions admitted to their responsibility.
The chief prosecutor of the international criminal court has said he is seeking arrest warrants for senior Hamas and Israeli officials for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his defence minister, Yoav Gallant. Netanyahu and Gallant are accused of extermination, causing starvation as a method of war, the denial of humanitarian relief supplies and deliberately targeting civilians. Hamas leaders and officials Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh were named as being wanted for crimes of extermination, murder, hostage taking, rape, sexual assault and torture.
Senior figures in the Israeli government have reacted angrily to the announcement which Israel’s foreign minister Israel Katz said was “scandalous” and tantamount to attacking the victims of 7 October. Finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, said the decision would be “the last nail in the dismantling of this political and antisemitic court,” adding that “arrest warrants [for Netanyahu and Gallant] are the arrest warrants for all of us”. President Isaac Herzog said it was “one-sided” and in “bad faith”, and that Israel “expects all leaders in the free world to condemn outright this step and firmly reject it.”
The move has also been condemned by senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhuri, who said the decision “equates the victim with the executioner” and encourages Israel to continue its “war of extermination” in Gaza. Wasel Abu Youssef of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) said there was confusion over who was the victim, and that “The Palestinian people have the right to defend themselves. The ICC is required to issue arrest warrants against Israeli officials who are pursuing crimes of genocide in the Gaza Strip.”
The development came just hours it was confirmed that the hardline Iranian president, Ebrahim Raisi, was killed in a helicopter crash in foggy weather in the mountains near the border with Azerbaijan. The charred wreckage of the aircraft, which crashed on Sunday carrying Raisi, as well as the foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, and six other passengers and crew, was found early on Monday after an overnight search in blizzard conditions. The 63-year-old ultraconservative will be replaced in the interim by the country’s first vice-president, Mohammad Mokhber. Under Iran’s constitution, a new presidential election must be held within 50 days.
The Times of Israel reports an unnamed Israeli official told the newspaper that the international criminal court’s (ICC) decision to seek arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant were a “baseless blood libel against Israel [that] has crossed a red line in [chief prosecutor Karim Khan’s] lawfare efforts against the lone Jewish state and the only democracy in the Middle East.”
It says Netanyahu is expected to make a video statement later. Israel is not a member of the court and does not recognise its authority.
Israel's president Herzog: 'one-sided' ICC decision to seek arrest warrants for Israeli and Hamas officials is 'beyond outrageous' and in 'bad faith'
Israeli President Isaac Herzog said that the international criminal court (ICC) prosecutor’s decision on to seek arrest warrants for Israeli officials due to the war on Gaza was “beyond outrageous” and “emboldens terrorists around the world.”
In a post to social media, Herzog said:
The announcement of the prosecutor at the ICC is beyond outrageous, and shows the extent to which the international judicial system is in danger of collapsing.
Taken in bad faith, this one-sided move represents a unilateral political step that emboldens terrorists around the world, and violates all the basic rules of the court according to the principle of complementarity and other legal norms.
Hamas’ leaders are oppressive dictators guilty of launching mass murder, mass rape, and mass kidnappings of men, women, children and babies.
Any attempt to draw parallels between these atrocious terrorists and a democratically elected government of Israel – working to fulfil its duty to defend and protect its citizens entirely in adherence to the principles of international law – is outrageous and cannot be excepted by anyone.
Herzog went on to say Israel “expects all leaders in the free world to condemn outright this step and firmly reject it.”
Netanyahu and Gallant are accused of extermination, causing starvation as a method of war, the denial of humanitarian relief supplies and deliberately targeting civilians. The ICC also named Hamas leaders and officials Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh as being wanted for crimes of extermination, murder, hostage taking, rape, sexual assault and torture.
Hadja Lahbib, the Belgian foreign minister, has been more supportive of the move by the international criminal court (ICJ) than the Czech prime minister, who earlier called its actions “completely unacceptable”. [See 13.44 BST]
Lahbib said:
Crimes committed in Gaza must be prosecuted at the highest level, regardless of the perpetrators. Belgium supports the work of the ICC. The request submitted by the court’s prosecutor, Karim Khan, for arrest warrants against both Hamas and Israeli officials is an important step in the investigation of the situation in Palestine.
Israeli ministers condemn ICC arrest warrant call as 'scandalous' and 'tantamount to attack on 7 October victims'
Senior figures in the Israeli government have reacted angrily to the announcement that the chief prosecutor of the international criminal court (ICC) is seeking arrest warrants for senior Hamas and Israeli officials for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his defence minister, Yoav Gallant.
Israel’s foreign minister Israel Katz said the move was “scandalous” and tantamount to attacking the victims of 7 October. Reuters reports he said he had opened a special war room to counteract the ICC’s move, adding no force in the world will prevent Israel from bringing back its hostages from Gaza and toppling Hamas.
Finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, said the decision would be “the last nail in the dismantling of this political and antisemitic court,” adding that “arrest warrants [for Netanyahu and Gallant] are the arrest warrants for all of us.”
War cabinet member Benny Gantz, who has recently threatened to pull his party from Israel’s coalition government said “Drawing parallels between the leaders of a democratic country determined to defend itself from despicable terror to leaders of a blood-thirsty terror organisation (Hamas) is a deep distortion of justice and blatant moral bankruptcy.”
Netanyahu and Gallant are accused of extermination, causing starvation as a method of war, the denial of humanitarian relief supplies and deliberately targeting civilians.
The Hamas-led health authority in Gaza has said the death toll from Israel’s military campaign in the Gaza Strip is over 35,500 Palestinians, while Israel says it has lost 282 soldiers since ground operations began. It has not been possible for journalists to independently verify the casualty figures being issued during the conflict.
Aid agencies have widely reported food shortages in the territory, where hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced by Israel’s aerial bombardment, being forced to live in makeshift tent shelters with poor sanitation conditions.
Palestinians walk among the ruins of Khan Younis after months of Israeli bombardment. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images
The move has also been condemned by senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhuri, who said the decision “equates the victim with the executioner” and encourages Israel to continue its “war of extermination” in Gaza. Wasel Abu Youssef of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) said there was confusion over who was the victim, and that “The Palestinian people have the right to defend themselves. The ICC is required to issue arrest warrants against Israeli officials who are pursuing crimes of genocide in the Gaza Strip.”
Hamas leaders and officials Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh were named as being wanted for crimes of extermination, murder, hostage taking, rape, sexual assault and torture.
Hamas and other groups in Gaza are believed to be still holding about 129 hostages of the approximately 250 seized and abducted during the 7 October surprise attack inside southern Israel. Israeli authorities put the death toll caused by the 7 October attack at about 1,140.
In Tel Aviv a picture of Amit Buskila, who was kidnapped from Nova festival on 7 October and whose body was announced retrieved from Gaza by the Israeli army last week, hangs with posters of other hostages kidnapped by Hamas and other groups. Photograph: Shannon Stapleton/Reuters
Czech prime minister, Petr Fiala, has condemned the move by the international criminal court as “completely unacceptable”.
He said:
The ICC Chief Prosecutor’s proposal to issue an arrest warrant for the representatives of a democratically elected government together with the leaders of an Islamist terrorist organisation is appalling and completely unacceptable.
We must not forget that it was Hamas that attacked Israel in October and killed, injured and kidnapped thousands of innocent people. It was this completely unprovoked terrorist attack that led to the current war in Gaza and the suffering of civilians in Gaza, Israel and Lebanon.
“The ICC is required to issue arrest warrants against Israeli officials who continue committing genocide crimes in the Gaza Strip,” Reuters reports he added.
ICC prosecutor seeks arrest warrants for Israeli PM and Hamas officials for war crimes
Bethan McKernan
Bethan McKernan reports from Jerusalem for the Guardian:
The chief prosecutor of the international criminal court has said he is seeking arrest warrants for senior Hamas and Israeli officials for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his defense minister, Yoav Gallant.
Karim Khan said his office has applied to the world court’s pre-trial chamber for arrest warrants for the military and political leaders on both sides for crimes committed during Hamas’s 7 October attack and the ensuing war in Gaza.
He named Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas chief in the Gaza Strip, and Mohammed Deif, the commander of its military wing, considered to be the masterminds of the 7 October assault, as well as Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of the group’s political bureau, who is based in Qatar, as wanted for crimes of extermination, murder, hostage taking, rape, sexual assault and torture.
Netanyahu and Gallant are accused of extermination, causing starvation as a method of war, the denial of humanitarian relief supplies and deliberately targeting civilians. “These acts demand accountability,” Khan’s office said in a statement.
The ICC has previously issued warrants for the Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Muammar Gaddafi of Libya, and the Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony. Israel is not a member of the court and does not recognise its authority.
Smotrich compares Hague court to 'Nazi propaganda' and says arrest warrents for Netanyahu and Gallant are 'arrest warrants for all of us'
Israel’s finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, has joined a chorus of disappoval from senior Israeli figures to the news that the chief prosecutor of the international criminal court has said he is seeking arrest warrants for senior Hamas and Israeli officials for war crimes.
In a post to social media the far-right minister and leader of the National Religious Party–Religious Zionism said:
We haven’t seen such a show of hypocrisy and hatred of Jews like that of The Hague Tribunal since Nazi propaganda. Haters of Israel come and go, Israel’s eternity will not lie.
These arrest warrants will be the last nail in the dismantling of this political and antisemitic court. The friends of Israel and the truly enlightened countries will not be able to allow its continued existence and functioning.
The same is true of the Palestinian Authority, which is behind the proceedings at the court. The time has come to bring it to an end and stop the damage it is causing to the state of Israel in the world.
I would like to strengthen the hands of the prime minister and the minister of defense. Their arrest warrants are the arrest warrants for all of us. Israel will continue to defend itself and eradicate its enemies and history will judge those who sided with the Nazis of Hamas and against the light and goodness of the State of Israel.
The Hamas-led health ministry in Gaza has issued updated casualty figures from the conflict, reporting 106 Palestinians were killed and 176 wounded in the last 24 hours.
That, it claims, brings the latest death toll in the Gaza Strip since 7 October to 35,562 Palestinians. The ministry claims that 79,652 people have been wounded.
Palestinians mourn in an ambulance next to bodies of relatives killed in overnight Israeli bombardment in the Tal al-Sultan neighbourhood of Rafah in southern Gaza on 20 May. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images
In addition, in a recent update on the situation in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs (OCHA) recorded that:
Since 7 October, 480 Palestinians have been killed, including 116 children, of whom 463 were killed by Israeli forces, ten by settlers, and seven where it remains unknown whether the perpetrators were Israeli settlers or soldiers. In addition, around 5,040 Palestinians have been injured in the same period.
Jewish settlers tour the Old City in the occupied-West Bank city of Hebron under the protection of Israeli soldiers on 18 May. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images
Israel’s military has recorded the deaths of 282 soldiers since ground operations began in Gaza on 27 October, and says that in total it has released the names of 631 soldiers killed during what it calls the Swords of Iron War since 7 October. Over 3,500 troops have been wounded, with 267 hospitlaised according to officially release figures.
Friends and family of an Israeli soldier mourn at a funeral held 20 May in Netanya, Israel, 20 May. Photograph: Shannon Stapleton/Reuters
Israel believes that about 129 hostages of the approximately 240 seized and abducted by Hamas and other groups on 7 October remain in Gaza, with at least 37 of them presumed dead.
It has not been possible for journalists to independently verify the casualty figures being issued during the conflict. Media access to Gaza has been limited, and the Committee to protect journalists has recorded that at least 105 journalists and media workers have been killed since 7 October.
