The International Criminal Court on Thursday issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence secretary Yoav Gallant, accusing them of crimes against humanity.
US President Joe Biden has condemned the decision by the Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC) to issue arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant as “outrageous.”
The warrants said there were “reasonable grounds” to believe that Netanyahu and Gallant had committed war crimes and crimes against humanity by restricting humanitarian aid and targeting civilians during Israel’s military campaign in the Gaza strip.
Arrest warrants for the pair were issued alongside one for Hamas commander Mohammed Deif for crimes against humanity, including murder and torture, during the 7 October attack by Hamas.
Biden said there was “no equivalence – none – between Israel and Hamas” and condemned the court for comparing the Israeli politicians with Deif.
“We will always stand with Israel against threats to its security” the US leader added.
The warrant marks the first time a sitting leader of a major Western ally has been accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity by a global court of justice.
Its decision means that Netanyahu, Gallant and Deif could be arrested when they travel to countries that are one of its 125 members.
Netanyahu called the arrest warrants “antisemitic” in a statement on Thursday.
The Israeli leader argued against the court’s allegations saying Israel had supplied Gaza with “700,000 tons of food to feed the people of Gaza. We issue millions of text messages, phone calls, leaflets to the citizens of Gaza to get them out of harm’s way”.
Hamas did not respond to Deif’s warrant but called the decision against Netanyahu and Gallant a “correction to a long path of historical injustice against our people”.
Israel previously claimed they killed Deif in an airstrike, however, Hamas have never confirmed his death.
Europe part of court’s rules
Although the US and Israel are not members of the ICC,the 27 member states of the European Union are.
On Thursday, the EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said that the court’s decision should be “respected and implemented.”
The ICC’s member states are required to detain suspects facing a warrant if they set foot on their soil, however in practice the court has no way of enforcing this.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has an ICC warrant for alleged war crimes in Ukraine, recently escaped arrest when he visited Mongolia despite the country being one of the courts member states.
Nevertheless, Italy, Ireland, Sweden, the Netherlands and France have signalled that they would respect the court’s decision and potentially arrest Netanyahu if he travelled to one of their countries.
Italy’s Defence Minister Guido Crosetto said Thursday that although it was “wrong” to compare Netanyahu and Gallant to Hamas, if the pair were to enter Italy “we would have to arrest them”.
France’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs declined to say whether the country would arrest Gallant or Netanyahu but said it would act “in line with the ICC’s statutes.”
The warrants are “an extremely significant step”, according to Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris, who added his country would respect the ICC’s role.
Austria’s foreign ministry said that warrants were “ludicrous”, but that his country would also be forced to implement arrests should Netanyahu and Gallant travel to Austria.
