International Criminal Court Issues Arrest Warrants For Netanyahu, Hamas Leader

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri, a Hamas leader commonly known as Mohammed Deif who is presumed dead, according to separate press releases.

Ex-Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who was ousted by Netanyahu earlier this month, also was the subject of an arrest warrant, the ICC said.

The warrants accuse the leaders of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity during the more than yearlong war in Gaza.

Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders have pushed back on the claims, accusing the ICC prosecutor of antisemitism.

The ICC warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant, which were first filed by prosecutors seeking their arrest in May, accuse the Israeli officials of using starvation as a method of warfare and committing crimes against humanity, including murder and persecution. They also accuse them of intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population in Gaza.

The judges focused on efforts to block humanitarian aid in violation of international humanitarian law. They said Israel has insufficiently allowed aid into Gaza, where many Palestinians are struggling to access necessities like food and water, and has often only eased up after pressure from the international community.

The ICC pre-trial chamber ruled there were "reasonable grounds to believe that both individuals 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" at least through May, when the arrest warrants were filed.

"The Chamber found that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the lack of food, water, electricity and fuel, and specific medical supplies, created conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of part of the civilian population in Gaza, which resulted in the death of civilians, including children due to malnutrition and dehydration," the judges said in the release.

More than 43,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza throughout the 13-month war, and despite U.S. pressure, aid has continued to struggle to get into the besieged territory.

The ICC also accused Israel of limiting medical supplies from entering Gaza, which inflicted "great suffering by means of inhumane acts on persons in need of treatment," and said Palestinians in Gaza were targeted based on their political and national affiliations, which judges said was a crime of persecution.

The arrest warrants will make it much more difficult for Netanyahu to travel; 124 countries have signed the Rome Statute to join the ICC and would be obligated to arrest the Israeli prime minister if he travels to their nation.

The U.S., which under the Biden administration has strongly supported Israel throughout the war, is not a party to the ICC and has accused the court of lacking jurisdiction in the case. 

But the ICC pretrial chamber said that it had jurisdiction in the case because, although Israel is not a party to the court, Palestine is, and the legal jurisdiction extends to Gaza and the West Bank.

The arrest warrants are likely to draw backlash in Washington, where the Senate on Wednesday easily defeated resolutions brought by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to block some offensive arms sales to Israel over concerns about the humanitarian situation and civilian deaths in Gaza. The U.S. on Wednesday also vetoed a resolution at the United Nations Security Council that would have called for an immediate end to the war in Gaza.

The ICC on Thursday also said its warrants targeting Deif, the military wing commander responsible for the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel in which nearly 1,200 people were killed and around 250 hostages were kidnapped, are still active because prosecutors are unsure of whether Deif is alive or dead. Israel has claimed he died in a July strike.

The ICC had previously targeted Yahya Sinwar, the former Hamas leader in Gaza, and Ismail Haniyeh, the top Hamas political leader. But both of them have since been killed by Israel.

The ICC says Deif committed several crimes, including crimes against humanity of murder, extermination; torture, rape and taking hostages, and that he was responsible for carrying them out and issuing orders for those crimes.

"The Chamber also found that the conduct took place as part of a mass killing of members of the civilian population, and it therefore concluded that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the crime against humanity of extermination was committed," the ICC said in its release.

Tara Suter contributed.

Updated at 10:25 a.m. EST