Targeted by ICC arrest warrant, Netanyahu vows to 'continue to defend' Israel

After more than a year of conflict à Gaza, the International Criminal Court has provoked Israel's fury by issuing unprecedented arrest warrants on Thursday for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister. Yoav Gallant's defense of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Another ICC warrant on the same grounds targets Mohammed Deif, head of Hamas' armed wing, whose bloody attack on Israeli soil on October 7, 2023, was followed by a military offensive in the Gaza Strip, which has been ravaged by massive bombings since then.

“No outrageous anti-Israeli decision will prevent us – and especially not me – from continuing to defend our country in any way,” Benjamin Netanyahu assured his fellow citizens in a message Thursday evening.

The leader had previously denounced an “anti-Semitic” decision and considered himself the victim of a new “Dreyfus trial” named after the French captain of Jewish faith convicted of espionage at the end of the 19th century before being exonerated and rehabilitated.

Also described as “outrageous” by Joe Biden, this decision limits the travel of the two Israeli officials. Any of the 124 member states of the court would theoretically be obliged to arrest them if they entered their territory, even if dozens of countries including Russia, the United States, and China do not recognize the jurisdiction of the ICC.

The Palestinian Islamist movement welcomed the indictment of Israeli leaders as an “important step towards justice”, without mentioning the arrest warrant announced simultaneously against its military leader.

– Deprivations –

The International Criminal Court (ICC) building pictured on November 21, 2024, in The Hague, Netherlands © ANP – Laurens van PUTTEN

The ICC’s arrest warrants are “unprecedented, justified and overdue,” said war crimes lawyer Reed Brody.

The ICC said it found “reasonable grounds” to believe that Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Gallant were “criminally responsible” for the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare, as well as the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution and other inhumane acts.

The two men, according to the ICC, “intentionally and knowingly deprived the civilian population of Gaza of things indispensable to their survival,” including food, water, medicine, fuel and electricity.

This situation “created conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of a part of the civilian population of Gaza,” explained the ICC, which however considered that “the elements of the crime against humanity of extermination” were not met.

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Another warrant was issued for Mohammed Deif even though according to Israel, he was killed in a strike on July 13 in southern Gaza. Hamas denies his death.

“This means that the voices of the victims are being heard,” said Yael Vias Gvirsman, who represents the families of 300 Israeli victims of the Hamas attack on October 7.

“Whatever the ICC may imply, there is no equivalence, none, between Israel and Hamas,” commented US President Joe Biden.

The head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, affirmed that the arrest warrants must be “respected and implemented”, even if some member countries of the European Union criticized them, with Hungary denouncing “a disgrace to the international legal system”.

– “No justice” –

The Israeli military offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip has left at least 44,056 Palestinians dead, according to figures from the Hamas government's Health Ministry, which do not distinguish between civilians and fighters.

It followed an unprecedented attack by Hamas commandos on Israeli territory on October 7, which resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

In Israel, the ICC announcement has caused consternation among residents and a certain scepticism tinged with fatalism among the population in Gaza.

“No matter how many arrest warrants they issue, there is no justice in that,” said Moshe Cohen, a resident of Beersheva, in the south of the country.

In central Gaza, Hasan Hasan, a displaced Palestinian, says he is convinced that “the decision will not be implemented because no decision in favor of the Palestinian cause has never been applied”.

Lebanese firefighters try to extinguish the fire of a building hit by an Israeli strike in the southern suburbs of Beirut, November 21, 2024 © AFP – –

On Thursday again in the Palestinian territory, the Civil Defense announced the death of 22 people killed during the night by an Israeli strike in Gaza City (north).

Another night raid in the Beit Lahia and Jabalia area (north) left dozens dead and missing, according to medical sources.

Israel also launched massive strikes in Lebanon on September 23 against the pro-Iranian Hezbollah, which had opened a “support front” for Hamas after October 7, by firing rockets into Israeli territory.

Israeli raids on the Bekaa Valley, a Hezbollah stronghold in the east of the country, killed 40 people, the Lebanese Health Ministry announced on Thursday, at a time when the American president's special envoy, Amos Hochstein, is in Israel, after Beirut, to try to obtain a truce between the two belligerents.

And in the evening the ministry announced that 12 people had been killed and 50 others injured in strikes on the south of the country.

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