The ICC has issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Gallant and a Hamas commander

International Criminal Court (ICC) judges have issued arrest warrants for Israel’s prime minister and former defense minister, as well as the Hamas military commander.

The statement said the pre-trial court dismissed Israel’s challenges to the court and issued warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant.

A warrant has also been issued for Mohammed Deif, although the Israeli military said he was killed in an airstrike in Gaza in July.

The judges said there were “reasonable grounds” that the three men were “guilty” of war crimes and crimes against humanity during the war between Israel and Hamas. Both Israel and Hamas have denied the allegations.

The Israeli prime minister’s office condemned the ICC decision as “illegal”, while Hamas said the warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant set “an important precedent in history”.

It will now be up to the ICC’s 124 member states – which do not include Israel or its ally, the United States – to decide whether or not to enforce it.

In May, ICC prosecutor Karim Khan sought warrants against Netanyahu, Gallant, Deif and two other slain Hamas leaders, Ismail Haniyeh and Yahya Sinwar.

Although Israel believes Deif is dead, the chamber said it was informed by ICC prosecutors that it was not in a position to determine whether he was killed or alive.

The prosecutor’s case against them stems from the events of October 7, 2023, when Hamas gunmen attacked southern Israel, killing around 1,200 people and taking 251 others back to Gaza as hostages.

Israel responded to the attack by launching a military campaign against Hamas, which has killed at least 44,000 people in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in the area.

According to the ICC, the group “found reasonable grounds to believe” that Deif was “guilty of murder; extermination; harassment; and rape and other forms of sexual violence; and war crimes of murder, cruelty, torture; taking hostages; anger over human dignity; and rape and other forms of sexual violence”.

It also said there were reasonable grounds to believe that the crimes against humanity were “part of a widespread and systematic attack directed by Hamas and other armed groups against Israeli citizens”.

For Netanyahu and Gallant, who was replaced as defense minister earlier this month, the chamber “found reasonable grounds to believe” that “each of them is guilty of the following crimes as accomplices in committing these acts in concert with others: war crimes. starvation as a means of warfare; and crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other brutal acts”.

It also found reasonable grounds to believe that “each is criminally responsible as military commanders for the war crime of deliberately directing attacks on civilians”.

Israel’s prime minister’s office slammed the ICC’s decision as “anti-Semitic” and “the equivalent of a modern-day Dreyfus case” – a reference to the trial of a Jewish army officer on charges of perjury in 19th Century France that caused a national crisis.

“Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will not give in to pressure, he will not be deterred, and he will not back down until the entire war objective set for Israel at the beginning of the campaign. [in Gaza] they are earned.”

There was no immediate reaction from Gallant. But in May he strongly rejected requests for an ICC prosecutor’s arrest warrant, saying they drew “bad” parallels between Israel and Hamas and tried to deny his country the right to self-defense.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog called the chamber’s decision “outrageous”, saying the ICC “turned universal justice into a global laughing stock”.

“The decision chose the side of terrorism and evil over democracy and freedom, and turned the very justice system into a human shield for Hamas’ crimes against humanity,” he added.

Hamas welcomed Netanyahu’s and Gallant’s mandates, saying it was “an important historical example, and the correction of a long path of historical injustice against our people”.

It also called on countries around the world to enforce these guarantees and work to stop what it called “the crime of genocide against defenseless civilians in the Gaza Strip”.

The State of Israel has denied that its soldiers killed Palestinians in Gaza.