The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as a senior Hamas official over alleged war crimes committed during the conflict that followed the October 7 attacks on Israel last year.
In a statement on Wednesday, the Netherlands-based court said it found “reasonable grounds” to believe that Netanyahu bears criminal responsibility for war crimes including “starvation as a method of warfare” and “the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts.”
It rejected Israel’s challenge of the court’s jurisdiction over the matter.
Israel isn’t a member of the ICC. The Palestinian Authority is however party to the Rome Statute that established the court and has joined as the State of Palestine. The court does not have its own enforcement mechanism and has relied on countries’ support for arrests.
The court also issued a warrant for Hamas official Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri, also known as Mohammed Deif, who Israel says was one of the masterminds of the October 7 attack, Israel said it killed him in an airstrike in September but Hamas hasn’t confirmed his death.
The ICC said it found “reasonable grounds” to believe that Deif was responsible for “crimes against humanity, including murder, extermination, torture, and rape and other form of sexual violence, as well as the war crimes of murder, cruel treatment, torture, taking hostages, outrages upon personal dignity, and rape and other form of sexual violence.”
Deif bears “criminal responsibility” for these crimes, the court said, having “committed the acts jointly and through others… having ordered or induced the commission of the crimes,” and for failing to “exercise proper control over forces under his effective command and control.”
The court added that there are “reasonable grounds to believe that the crimes against humanity were part of a widespread and systematic attack directed by Hamas and other armed groups against the civilian population of Israel.”
