The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants Thursday for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif, for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes.
The ICC accused Netanyahu and Gallant of a string of human rights abuses in the Gaza Strip, where local health officials said the death toll from the Israeli military's yearlong assault on the Palestinian enclave had now passed 44,000.
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Israel responded furiously to the warrants, with Netanyahu's office branding the decision "antisemitic," rejecting the charges as "absurd and false" and condemning the ICC as a "biased and discriminatory political body."
Hamas welcomed the warrants as an "important step towards justice" but senior political official Basem Naim said the court's decision "remains limited and symbolic if it is not supported by all means by all countries around the world to implement it."
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A spokesperson for the National Security Council said the U.S. “fundamentally rejects the Court’s decision to issue arrest warrants for senior Israeli officials," and it was "deeply concerned by the prosecutor’s rush to seek arrest warrants and the troubling process errors that led to this decision."
Both Israel and the United States do not recognize the jurisdiction of the ICC, which has no police to enforce its warrants. But the warrants do put the Israeli officials at risk of arrest in other countries, including much of Europe.
In its announcement Thursday the ICC rejected challenges from Israel to its jurisdiction. It said the warrants issued for Netanyahu and Gallant were related to "crimes against humanity and war crimes committed from at least 8 October, 2023 until at least 20 May, 2024," including "the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts."
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It also said reasonable grounds were found to believe they bore criminal responsibility as "civilian superiors" for the war crime of "intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population."
Netanyahu and Gallant were accused of having "intentionally and knowingly deprived the civilian population in Gaza of objects indispensable to their survival, including food, water, and medicine and medical supplies, as well as fuel and electricity."
The ICC said it further found that their conduct had hampered the ability of humanitarian organizations to provide food and other essential items to those in desperate need in the enclave.
NBC News has reached out to Gallant’s office and the State Department for comment.
ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim A.A. Khan said in May that he was filing applications for the arrest of Netanyahu, Gallant and other senior Israeli officials. He had also sought arrest warrants for Hamas figures who have played key roles in the ongoing war, including leader Yahya Sinwar, who was killed in Gaza in October.
On Thursday, the court issued a separate arrest warrant for Deif, an alleged architect of the Oct. 7 terror attack, whom Israel said it killed earlier this year.
Deif was accused of crimes against humanity and war crimes, including for his role in the Oct. 7 attack in which Israeli officials said some 1,200 people were killed and around 250 taken hostage, a major escalation in the decadeslong conflict.
The ICC noted that Khan had initially filed applications for arrest warrants for Sinwar and Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas who was assassinated by Israel in July. But it said the applications were withdrawn following confirmation of their deaths.
The court launched an investigation three years ago into possible war crimes committed by both Israel and Palestinian militants going back to the Israel-Hamas war in 2014.
Netanyahu has labeled Khan a “rogue prosecutor who’s out to demonize the one and only Jewish state.”
And Thursday's development drew swift condemnation from Israeli officials, with President Isaac Herzog saying the arrest warrants marked a "dark day for justice" and "a dark day for humanity."
"Taken in bad faith, the outrageous decision at the ICC has turned universal justice into a universal laughing stock," he said.
Rep. Mike Waltz, R-Fla., President-elect Donald Trump's choice to be national security adviser, condemned the ICC, which he said has "no credibility."
"Israel has lawfully defended its people & borders from genocidal terrorists. You can expect a strong response to the antisemitic bias of the ICC & UN come January," he said in a post on X.
President Joe Biden has previously condemned the ICC's efforts to issue the arrest warrants as “outrageous," suggesting they imply a false “equivalence” between Israel and Hamas.
Some leading human rights advocates welcomed the decision.
"The court’s issuance of arrest warrants is an important step forward for justice for the Palestinian civilians of Gaza, who so far have known mainly injustice," Kenneth Roth, the former executive director of Human Rights Watch, told NBC News.
"All of the International Criminal Court’s 125 members are now obliged to arrest Netanyahu and Gallant should they dare to step foot no their territory," he said Thursday, adding: "The world has suddenly become a lot smaller for Netanyahu and Gallant."
Roth said governments providing military support to Israel, including the U.S. — the country's biggest arms supplier — should also take heed.
"Any government that continues to provide weapons to Israel while these crimes continue, which they do, is on notice that they could be charged with aiding and abetting these crimes," he said.
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