Netanyahu 'rejects with disgust' ICC arrest warrant

US President Joe Biden has called the arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant "outrageous."

In a statement, the outgoing president said: "We will always stand with Israel against threats to its security."

Referring indirectly to a third arrest warrant issued for Mohammed Deif, the military chief of Hamas, Biden was quoted as saying: "Whatever the ICC might imply, there is no equivalence – none – between Israel and Hamas."

Earlier, a US National Security Council spokesperson said the White House "fundamentally rejects" the calls for arrests.

"We remain deeply concerned by the prosecutor's rush to seek arrest warrants and the troubling process errors that led to this decision," the said. "The United States has been clear that the ICC does not have jurisdiction over this matter."

Mike Waltz, Donald Trump's nominee for the next national security advisor, also said that the ICC has "no credibility" and that the allegations against Netanyahu and Goav "have been refuted by the US government."

He defended Israel and promised a strong response to he called "the antisemitic bias of the ICC and UN."

Israel's former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, said on Thursday that the arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) was a "dangerous precedent."

"The decision of the court in The Hague will be remembered forever, it places 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," he wrote on X. 

"The decision sets a dangerous precedent against the right to self-defence and ethical warfare and encourages murderous terrorism."

Canada will abide by all rulings issued by international courts, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Thursday.

A three-judge panel from the International Criminal Court (ICC) decided to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Hamas officials on Thursday.

"It's really important that everyone abide by international law," Trudeau said during a televised news conference when questioned on the issue.

"We stand up for international law, and we will abide by all the regulations and rulings of the international courts," Trudeau said.

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the United Kingdom respects the independence of the ICC, but did not confirm whether Britain would uphold the warrants.

All 27 EU countries are signatories to the International Criminal Court, and the EU's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has reminded them of their duty to abide by the court's ruling.

Borrell made the comments after the ICC issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif.

DW correspondent Rosie Birchard reports from The Hague on the accusations faced by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Hamas leader Mohammed Deif, and whether the ICC has the power to execute its warrants.

Western countries have reacted to the news of the ICC arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with responses ranging from outright rejection to mostly circumspect acceptance.

Some of those in the latter category said they would arrest Netanyahu if he came to their territory, and some merely suggested they would.

The European Union's top diplomat, Josep Borrell, said the warrants were not political, and that the court decision should be respected and implemented.

France said it would act in accordance with the notion of "combating impunity."

"Our response will align with these principles," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Christophe Lemoine, while conceding that it was a "complex legal issue."

The Netherlands was more forthright, with Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp telling Parliament: "We won't engage in nonessential contacts and we will act on the arrest warrants. We fully comply with the Rome Statute of the ICC."

Norway's foreign minister, Espen Barth Eide, said only: "It is important that the ICC carries out its mandate in a judicious manner. I have confidence that the court will proceed with the case based on the highest fair trial standards."

Ireland's prime minister, Simon Harris, said that issuing the warrants was "an extremely significant step," adding that anyone in a position to assist the ICC in carrying out its vital work must do so "with urgency."

In the US, which, like Israel, is not a member of the court, the tendency seemed to be toward complete rejection, at least in the Republican camp.

Republican US Senator Lindsey Graham, a close ally of President-elect Donald Trump, said on X, formerly Twitter, that "[a]ny nation that joins with the ICC after this outrage is a partner in a reckless act that tramples the rule of law."

The leader of the Central Council of Jews in Germany has condemned the ICC arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, accusing the court of establishing a false equivalence between Israel and the militant group Hamas, which is classified as a terrorist organization by Israel, the EU and the US, among others.

"This arrest warrant against a prime minister of a democratic state and his former defense minister is an absurdity," Josef Schuster, the president of the council, said in Berlin.

"Israel is defending itself against Islamist terror in Gaza and Lebanon after the Hamas massacre on October 7, 2023," he said.

"The semantic dualism alone, putting Israel on the same level as Hamas, borders on impudence and a completely misguided understanding of the office of an international criminal court as a result of anti-Israel propaganda," Schuster added.

The ICC also issued arrest warrants for former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Hamas officials, accusing all of war crimes and crimes against humanity in connection with the ongoing conflict in Gaza.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he "rejects with disgust" what he called "the absurd
and false actions" of the ICC in issuing an arrest warrant against him.

In a statement released by his office, he said: "There is nothing more just than the war that Israel has been waging in Gaza."

Netanyahu said the arrest warrants were "antisemitic" and compared them to a "modern-day Dreyfus trial," in reference to the 19 century case of Alfred Dreyfus in France.

Dreyfus, a French soldier of Jewish descent, was wrongfully convicted of treason in 1894, in what was widely seen as an antisemitic decision, for allegedly handing French military secrets to the German Embassy in Paris. He was finally exonerated in 1906 after his case split French society for many years.

The Israeli president and other prominent political figures have condemned the ICC's move to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

President Isaac Herzog described the move as "an absurd decision," while former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said it was a "mark of shame" for the court.

Israel's main opposition leader, Yair Lapid, also slammed the move, calling it "a reward for terrorism."

The ICC says it has grounds to believe Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister "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."

The statement was issued by a three-judge panel as it unanimously decided to issue arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Yoav Gallant and Hamas officials.

They have all been accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity in connection with the war in Gaza, which was triggered by the October 7, 2023, attacks by Hamas in southern Israel that killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians.

The arrest warrants turn Netanyahu and the others into internationally wanted suspects, but none of them is likely to come before the court soon. The ICC relies on cooperation from its member states — which include neither Israel nor its ally, the United States — to bring people to face trial.

The ICC prosecutes cases only when law enforcement authorities in a country cannot or will not do so themselves.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Hamas official Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri amid the conflict in Gaza.

In its statement, the court said it had "reasonable grounds" to believe that Netanyahu and Gallant oversaw attacks on the civilian population in Gaza, and that they were also alleged to have used starvation as an instrument of war.   

It said that Israel's acceptance of the court's jurisdiction was not required.

Israel is not a member of the court, seated in The Hague in the Netherlands.

The Gaza Health Ministry reported on Thursday that Israel's military offensive has killed 44,056 people in the Hamas-run Palestinian territory since October 7, 2023.

The Health Ministry's count does not differentiate between civilians and combatants, but health officials have said more than half of the fatalities are women and children. The Israeli military says it has killed over 17,000 militants without providing evidence.

Israel, Germany, the United States and several other countries classify Hamas as a terrorist organization. The Health Ministry casualty figures have been seen as reliable by the United Nations and other organizations that work in the region.

The war began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants attacked Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking another 250 people hostage. Around 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, though Israeli officials believe a third of them are dead. Most of the remaining hostages were released during a cease-fire last year.

A 30-year-old man was killed by shrapnel from a rocket that hit the northern Israeli town of Nahariya, Israel's Magen David Adom rescue service said.

The Israeli military said that around 10 rockets were launched from Lebanon towards the Galilee region in northern Israel, adding that "most of the projectiles were intercepted."

Nahariya lies some 34 kilometers (21 miles) north of the city of Haifa and around 9.5 kilometers south of the Israeli-Lebanese border.

The director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza told the French news agency AFP that at least 22 civilians had been killed in an Israeli strike on a residential building near the hospital.

"Bodies arrive at the hospital in pieces," Hossam Abu Safia told AFP. "There are no ambulances. The health system has collapsed in northern Gaza."

At the same time, the region's civil defense agency said 22 people were killed in another strike on Gaza City.

According to Gaza's Hamas-run Health Ministry, at least 44,056 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in the region since the start of Israel's war against Hamas in October 2023. 

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has updated the death toll from an Israeli strike on the Syrian city of Palmyra to 61. The Syrian Defense Ministry put the death toll at 36, mostly comprising Syrians connected to Hezbollah or other Iran-backed militias.

Palmyra is famous for its Greco-Roman ruins, a UNESCO World Heritage Site that has been at risk for over a decade due to the Syrian civil war.

Israel has not commented on the strike but has said it is trying to curtail Hezbollah's influence across the region.