The International Criminal Court announced Wednesday that it had issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, and charged them with war crimes and crimes against humanity. The two men had for over a year overseen an immensely destructive war in Gaza that has since expanded into Lebanon and the West Bank.
A separate press release announced that an arrest warrant had also been issued for Muhammad Deif, Hamas’ military chief, for crimes against humanity over his role in planning and executing the Oct. 7 attack and hostage-taking in southern Israel. The Israeli Defense Forces said in August that it had killed him in an airstrike.
According to the ICC, there are “reasonable grounds” to believe that Netanyahu and Gallant “intentionally directed attacks against the civilian population of Gaza,” “intentionally limited or prevented medical supplies and medicine from getting into Gaza” and “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.”
Israel has reportedly killed 45,000 Palestinians in Gaza alone since Oct. 7, and displaced and starved millions more, with numerous documented cases of the IDF targeting civilians, from mass bombings of refugee camps to soldiers shooting down children and people searching desperately for supplies. Last week, a United Nations special committee found that Israel has committed atrocities consistent with the characteristics of genocide. Even before the war, critics accused the Israeli state of carrying out polices that amount to apartheid against Palestinians.
While related and often paired together, war crimes and crimes against humanity are separately defined. Individual actions in war can constitute a war crime, which can be committed against both civilians and armed combatants; crimes against humanity, on the other hand, must be committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack upon a civilian population.
The ICC’s chief prosecutor, Karim A. A. Khan, had requested the warrants in May, even though Israel is not a member of the ICC. The request included warrants for Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar and Ismail Haniyeh, who have both been confirmed killed. In issuing the warrants that put Netanyahu and Gallant in the same category as Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, the ICC rejected Israel’s challenge to the court’s jurisdiction, saying “the acceptance by Israel of the Court’s jurisdiction is not required, as the Court can exercise its jurisdiction on the basis of territorial jurisdiction of Palestine.”
Nevertheless, Israel’s position outside the court means that Netanyahu and Gallant, whom the prime minister recently fired over a “crisis in trust,” will not face any risk of arrest at home. They would, however, be subject to arrest if they traveled to any of the court’s 124 member nations, which includes most of Europe but not the United States, which like Israel does not recognize the ICC’s jurisdiction. The Palestinian territories joined the court in 2015.
Israel responded to the warrants with defiance. Netanyahu’s office rejected what it called “absurd and false accusations” by a “biased and discriminatory political body,” insisting in a statement Israel was waging war to defend its citizens and would continue to do so. Netanyahu “will not surrender to the pressures; he will not recoil or withdraw until all of the war’s goals — that were set at the start of the battle — are achieved,” the statement said.
Opposition leader Yair Lapid concurred in an X post, characterizing Israel’s actions as a fight for survival “against terrorist organizations.” Netanyahu and many other Israeli officials accused the ICC of antisemitism.
A Hamas spokesperson praised the warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant as “an important step towards justice and can lead to redress for the victims in general” but only if it is “supported by all means by all countries around the world.” The Hamas statement did not mention the warrant against Deif.
European officials have largely stated they intend to comply with the ICC’s decision, which comes after Germany and France stopped sending military aid to Israel and signals further declining goodwill towards Netanyahu’s government. The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said the court’s decision was “not political” and should be “respected and implemented.” A government minister in the Netherlands announced that the country is prepared to arrest Netanyahu and Gallant if either sets foot in its territory. In France, a foreign affairs spokesperson said at a news conference that its government’s reaction would follow the ICC’s authority as outlined in the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the court, but later added that arresting the Israeli leaders was a “legally complicated” question.
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While the United States has not yet commented on the ICC’s announcement, it previously called Khan’s request for warrants “outrageous” and has repeatedly joined Israel in challenging its critics on the international stage, just this week vetoing yet another UN resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. Under President Joe Biden’s administration, the U.S. has continued sending billions of dollars in military weapons to Israel despite voicing frustration with Netanyahu’s conduct of the war.
Republicans and some staunchly pro-Israel Democrats, on the other hand, were quick to condemn the warrants and threaten action against the ICC. President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming national security advisor, Rep. Mike Waltz, R-Fla., wrote in a social media post that the ICC “has no credibility” and that the Trump administration would unleash a “strong response to the antisemitic bias of the ICC & UN come January.”
What that response entails might be gleaned from Trump’s decision in his first term to impose sanctions on the ICC, which included asset freezes and entry bans against ICC officials and their families. Biden revoked the sanctions upon assuming the presidency. Now, lawmakers like Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. are urging the Senate to vote on legislation that would reimpose them.
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