Netanyahu condemns ICC war crimes arrests

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has criticized the International Criminal Court’s decision as “antisemitic” to issue war-related arrest warrants against him and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

He said the ICC is “lying” accusing them of “deliberately targeting people, this is when we do everything we can to avoid harming people”.

The ICC also issued a warrant for Hamas commander Mohammed Deif. Israel says he was killed in Gaza in July.

ICC judges said there were “reasonable grounds” to believe the three men were “guilty” of crimes during the war between Israel and Hamas.

US President Joe Biden called the ICC action against Israeli officials “outrageous”.

“No matter what the ICC says, there is no equality – none – between Israel and Hamas,” Biden said in a statement. statement. “We will always stand with Israel in the fight against threats to its security.”

Both Israel and Hamas deny the allegations made by the ICC.

In a statement on Thursday, Netanyahu said: “The verdict of the international court in The Hague against the Jews is a modern Dreyfus case, and it will end the same way.”

He was referring to a The ultimate case of anti-Semitism in France just over a century ago.

“The Hague court accuses us of a deliberate policy of starvation,” said the Israeli Prime Minister.

“This is when we have given Gaza 700,000 tons of food to feed the people of Gaza. We are sending out millions of messages, calls, leaflets to the citizens of Gaza to get them out of harm’s way – while Hamas terrorists are doing everything in their power to keep them in harm’s way, including shooting them, using human shields.

Netanyahu said Israel “will not recognize the validity” of the ICC decision.

Just this week, The UN has warned that the Palestinians “face diminishing conditions of survival” in the northern parts of Gaza besieged by the Israeli army because almost no aid has been delivered in 40 days.

Gallant said the ICC has placed “the state of Israel and the murderous leaders of Hamas on the same list and thus condones the killing of children, the rape of women and the kidnapping of adults in their beds”.

Ehud Olmert, the former prime minister of Israel, told the BBC that although he criticized Netanyahu’s handling of the war with Hamas, he did not agree with the ICC decision.

“Israel has not committed crimes of genocide or war worthy of the charges against the prime minister and the defense minister,” Olmert told Radio 4’s World Tonight program.

Hamas did not comment on Deif’s warrant but said the move against Netanyahu and Gallant constituted “an important historical precedent, and the correction of a long path of historical injustice against our people”.

The Palestinians in Gaza expressed their hope that the Israeli leaders will be brought to justice.

Israel denies allegations that its forces carried out a massacre in Gaza, which is the subject of a separate case at the International Court of Justice.

The effect of concessions announced by the ICC it will depend on whether the court’s 124 member states – which do not include Israel or its ally, the US – decide to enforce it or not.

Several European countries have said they respect the ICC’s decisions. Downing Street said the British government respects the independence of the ICC.

The prosecutor’s case against the three men dates back to October 7, 2023, when Hamas gunmen attacked Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking 251 others back to Gaza as hostages.

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

To Deif, The pre-trial chamber of the ICC found reasonable grounds to believe that “he is facing crimes of murder; extermination; torture; and rape and other forms of sexual violence; and war crimes of murder, cruel treatment, torture; hostage-taking; outrage on personal dignity;

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”.

To Netanyahu and Gallant, who was removed from the post of minister of defense earlier this month, the trial found reasonable grounds to believe that “each of them is guilty of the following crimes as participants in committing these acts in concert with others: war crimes of starvation as a means of war. ; and crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other cruel 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”.