The global court’s chief prosecutor says he is seeking arrest warrants for Israeli and Hamas leaders.
The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) has applied for arrest warrants against top Israeli and Hamas leaders for alleged war crimes.
ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan said on Monday that his office had applied for arrest warrants for Israeli and Hamas leaders for alleged crimes committed during the Hamas-led October 7 attack on southern Israel and Israel’s subsequent war on Gaza.
Khan announced his office had “reasonable grounds” to believe that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant bear “criminal responsibility” for “war crimes and crimes against humanity”.
Khan also applied for arrest warrants for three Hamas leaders – Yahya Sinwar, Ismail Haniyeh, and Mohammed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri (also known as Deif) – for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Here are some reactions to the announcement:
Netanyahu said the ICC decision was a disgrace and an attack on Israel.
“I reject with disgust the comparison of the prosecutor in The Hague between democratic Israel and the mass murderers of Hamas,” Netanyahu said.
“With what audacity do you compare Hamas that murdered, burned, butchered, decapitated, raped and kidnapped our brothers and sisters, and the [Israeli army] soldiers fighting a just war?”
“We haven’t seen such a show of hypocrisy and hatred of Jews like that of the Hague Tribunal since Nazi propaganda,” Smotrich said on X.
Hamas denounced the ICC prosecutor’s decision to seek arrest warrants against its leaders, accusing Karim Khan of trying to “equate the victim with the executioner”.
The group said it demanded the cancellation of the request, adding that Khan’s application for arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant had come “seven months too late”.
The Government Media Office in Gaza has welcomed the ICC’s decision to seek arrest warrants for Israeli leaders, and also denounced the decision to apply for warrants for Hamas leaders.
“We appreciate the decision of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to issue arrest warrants for two Zionist war criminals”, a statement from the office begins.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
“We see the issuance of these memorandums as a legal step in the right direction, despite the fact that they came late,” it continues.
The office also said it “deplores the fact that this step was accompanied by the issuance of similar decisions against some of the leaders of our people”, referring to requests for arrest warrants against several Hamas officials.
Barghouti has said that the ICC’s step affirms “that no one is immune from international law”.
“We consider this to be the first step towards condemning the crimes of genocide committed by the rulers and army of Israel against the Palestinian people in Gaza and holding them accountable for committing these crimes according to international law and international humanitarian law,” Barghouti said in a statement.
Lahbib said that any crimes committed in Gaza must be prosecuted at the highest level.
“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,” she wrote on X.
“Belgium will continue to support the essential work of international justice to ensure that those responsible for all crimes are held accountable,” the minister added.
Chancellor Nehammer said that Austria fully respects the independence of the ICC but said the move to seek arrest warrants for Israeli and Hamas officials at the same time was “non-comprehensible”.
“The fact however that the leader of the terrorist organisation Hamas whose declared goal is the extinction of the State of Israel is being mentioned at the same time as the democratically elected representatives of that very State is non-comprehensible,” 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,” said Fiala.
“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 United Kingdom prime minister’s spokesperson said the ICC’s decision “is not helpful in relation to reaching a pause in the fighting, getting hostages out or getting humanitarian aid in”.
“The UK, as with other countries, does not yet recognise Palestine as a state and Israel is not a state party to the Rome Statute”, which outlines the ICC’s areas of jurisdiction, the spokesperson added.
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