ICC war crimes arrest warrant ‘outrageous,’ says Biden

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U.S. President Joe Biden condemned the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) decision to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, calling it “outrageous.”

The ICC also issued a warrant for Hamas commander Mohammed Deif, whom Israel claims was killed in July.

The ICC judges stated they found “reasonable grounds” to believe that the three figures bear “criminal responsibility” for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity during the Israel-Hamas conflict.

Reactions to the warrants differ globally: while the U.S. and Israel denounced the decision, several European countries expressed respect for the ICC’s independence and authority.

The British government also affirmed its respect for the court’s impartiality.

“Whatever the ICC might imply, there is no equivalence – none – between Israel and Hamas,” Biden said in a statement. “We will always stand with Israel against threats to its security.”

Both Israel and Hamas reject the allegations made by the ICC.

In a statement on Thursday, Netanyahu said: “The antisemitic decision of the international court in The Hague is a modern Dreyfus trial, and it will end the same way.”

He was referring to a high-profile case of antisemitism in France just over a century ago.

“The court in The Hague accuses us of a deliberate policy of starvation,” the Israeli PM said.

“This when we have 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 – while the Hamas terrorists do everything in their power to keep them in harm’s way, including shooting them, using them as human shields.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that Israel would “not recognize the validity” of the International Criminal Court’s decision to issue arrest warrants against him and other officials.

This development coincides with mounting international concern over the humanitarian situation in Gaza. The United Nations recently warned that Palestinians in parts of northern Gaza face “diminishing conditions for survival” due to an Israeli siege, with almost no humanitarian aid reaching the region for over 40 days.

Gallant said the ICC placed “the state of Israel and the murderous leaders of Hamas in the same row and thus legitimises the murder of babies, the rape of women and the abduction of the elderly from their beds”.

Ehud Olmert, a former Israeli prime minister, told the BBC that while he was critical of Netanyahu’s handling of the conflict with Hamas, he did not agree with the ICC’s decision.

“Israel has not committed genocide or war crimes that deserve these charges against the prime minister and the minister of defence,” Olmert told Radio 4’s World Tonight programme.

Hamas made no mention of the Deif warrant but said the move against Netanyahu and Gallant constituted an “important historical precedent, and a correction to a long path of historical injustice against our people”.

Palestinians in Gaza expressed hope Israeli leaders would now be brought to justice.

Israel denies the allegation that its forces are committing genocide in Gaza, which is the subject of a separate case before the International Court of Justice.

The impact of the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu, former defense minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas commander Mohammed Deif will depend on whether any of the court’s 124 member states choose to enforce them.

Notably, neither Israel nor the United States are members of the ICC, complicating enforcement efforts.

Officials from the European Union, the United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands, and Italy have publicly affirmed their support for the ICC’s decisions.

The charges stem from events following Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, where 1,200 Israelis were killed, and 251 hostages taken. Israel’s subsequent military campaign in Gaza resulted in over 44,000 deaths, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

The ICC alleges Deif is responsible for crimes against humanity, including murder, extermination, torture, and sexual violence. Netanyahu and Gallant face accusations related to war crimes, such as using starvation as a method of warfare and committing inhumane acts.

The court asserts that crimes attributed to Hamas were part of a widespread attack on Israeli civilians, while Israel’s leaders allegedly targeted Gaza’s civilian population during their military response.

It also found reasonable grounds to believe that “each bear criminal responsibility as civilian superiors for the war crime of intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population”.