Supreme War Crimes Court issues arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Hamas officials

HAGUE — The world’s top war crimes court on Thursday issued arrest warrants for the leaders of Israel and Hamas, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, accusing them of crimes against humanity in connection with the war that began more than a year ago.

The warrants against Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant center on accusations that Israel used food as a weapon in its campaign against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Israeli officials deny the accusation. Experts warn that famine has spread throughout Gaza and may have reached the level of famine in the north of the territory besieged by Israeli troops.

The International Criminal Court’s decision comes as the death toll from Israel’s campaign in Gaza tops 44,000, according to local health authorities, who say more than half of those killed were women and children. Their counting does not differentiate between civilians and combatants.

Netanyahu condemned the warrant for his arrest, saying Israel “rejects with disgust the absurd and false actions” of the court. In a statement released by his office, he said: “There is nothing more just than the war that Israel is waging in the Gaza Strip.”

The decision makes Netanyahu and others internationally wanted suspects and could further isolate them and complicate efforts to negotiate a ceasefire. But its practical impact may be limited because Israel and its main ally, the United States, are not members of the court.

Israeli leaders, politicians and officials across the spectrum have condemned the warrants and the ICC. New Defense Minister Israel Katz, who replaced Gallant earlier this month, said Thursday’s decision was “a moral disgrace, completely tainted by anti-Semitism and bringing the international judicial system to an unprecedented low.”

Human rights groups welcomed the move.

The warrants against both sides “shatter the notion that some people are beyond the reach of the law,” Balqis Jarrah, deputy international justice director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.

The decision comes six months after ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan requested the warrants.

The court issued the warrant to Mohammed Deif, head of the armed wing of Hamas, in connection with the October 7, 2023 attacks that triggered the Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip. It said it found reasonable grounds to believe Deif was involved in murder, rape, torture and hostage-taking, which constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity.

In a Hamas-led attack, militants swept into southern Israel, killing 1,200 people (mostly civilians) and taking about 250 more hostage. About 100 Israelis remain captive in the Gaza Strip, about a third of them believed to be dead.

Khan withdrew his request for warrants against two other senior Hamas figures, Yahya Sinwar and Ismail Haniyeh, who were later killed. Israel claims it also killed Deif in an airstrike, but Hamas has never confirmed his death.

The arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant were issued by a panel of three judges in a unanimous decision.

The group said there were reasonable grounds to believe they had “intentionally and knowingly deprived the civilian population of Gaza of items essential to their survival,” including food, water, medicine, fuel and electricity.

In September, Israel’s Foreign Ministry said it had submitted two legal opinions challenging the ICC’s jurisdiction and arguing that the court did not give Israel the opportunity to investigate the allegations itself before seeking warrants.

The ICC is a court of last resort that hears cases only in cases where national law enforcement authorities are unable or unwilling to investigate. Israel is not a member state of the court. The country has struggled in the past to investigate, rights groups say.

Despite the warrants, neither suspect is likely to appear in court in The Hague anytime soon. Member countries are required to detain suspects facing a warrant if they set foot on their soil, but the courts have no capacity to enforce this.

For example, Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is wanted on an ICC warrant for alleged war crimes in Ukraine, recently visited Mongolia, a member state of the court but also a Russian ally. He was not arrested.

However, the threat of arrest now complicates any travel abroad by Netanyahu and Gallant, including to close Israeli allies such as France or Britain, said Yuval Shani, an international law expert at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

France has made it clear that it may arrest Netanyahu if he comes to its territory. Foreign Ministry spokesman Christophe Lemoine called it a “complex legal issue” but said France supported the court’s action.

“The fight against impunity is our priority,” he said. “Our response will be consistent with these principles.”

Israeli opposition leaders sharply criticized the ICC decision. Benny Gantz, a retired general and Netanyahu’s political rival, said it showed “moral blindness” and was “a disgrace of historic proportions that will never be forgotten.”

Yair Lapid, another opposition leader, called it a “prize for terror.”

Shortly after Israel began its campaign vowing to destroy Hamas following the October attacks, it announced a complete lockdown of the Gaza Strip, promising to keep food, water and other supplies out. Under US pressure, within weeks it began to let in a trickle of humanitarian aid. The campaign caused heavy destruction across Gaza and forced almost the entire population of 2.3 million to flee their homes, leaving the majority dependent on humanitarian aid for survival.

Israel now says it places no restrictions on the volume of supplies to Gaza. Still, the flow of food and other goods is at near the lowest level of the war, and the U.N. and other groups have said Israeli military restrictions are largely to blame, as well as widespread lawlessness that has led to the theft of aid shipments.

The ICC case is separate from another legal battle Israel is fighting at the UN’s highest court, the International Court of Justice, in which South Africa accuses Israel of genocide, a charge Israeli leaders vehemently deny.

Israel’s lawyers argued in court that the war in Gaza was a legitimate defense of its people and that Hamas militants were guilty of genocide.

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Associated Press journalists Raf Casert in Brussels, Mike Corder in The Hague and Josef Federman in Jerusalem contributed to this report.