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The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant “for crimes against humanity and war crimes”.
The move is a dramatic escalation of legal proceedings over Israel’s offensive in Gaza, and marks the first time that the court, which was set up in 2002, has issued a warrant for a western-backed leader.
It means that the ICC’s 124 member states — which include most European and Latin American countries and many in Africa and Asia — would be obliged to arrest Netanyahu and Gallant if they entered their territory. But the court has no means of enforcing the warrants if they do not.
Announcing the decision on Thursday, the court said there were “reasonable grounds” to believe that Netanyahu and Gallant bear criminal responsibility for “the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts”.
The ICC said there were also reasonable grounds to believe they had “intentionally and knowingly deprived” Gaza’s civilians of food, water, medical supplies, fuel and electricity. It also said that it had unanimously decided to reject Israel’s appeal over the ICC’s jurisdiction.
Israel’s president Isaac Herzog criticised the decision as a “dark day for justice”. “Taken in bad faith, the outrageous decision at the ICC has turned universal justice into a universal laughing stock,” he wrote on X.
“The decision has chosen the side of terror and evil over democracy and freedom, and turned the very system of justice into a human shield for Hamas’ crimes against humanity.”
Netanyahu has previously rejected the ICC prosecutor’s application for arrest warrants as “absurd and false . . . and a distortion of reality”.
The court also issued an arrest warrant for Hamas leader Mohammed Deif for crimes against humanity and war crimes over the militant group’s October 7 2023 attack on Israel that triggered the war in Gaza. Israel said in August it had killed Deif in an air strike in Gaza a month earlier.
The ICC prosecutor Karim Khan originally sought the warrants in May for Netanyahu, Gallant, Deif and two other Hamas leaders, Yahya Sinwar and Ismail Haniyeh, both of whom Israel has killed.
The ICC’s move comes as Israel is under intense criticism over the toll of its offensive in Gaza, which has fuelled a humanitarian catastrophe in the enclave.
The hostilities began when Hamas militants stormed into Israel in October last year, rampaging through communities in the south of the country, killing 1,200 people, according to Israeli officials, and taking another 250 hostage.
In response, Israel launched a ferocious assault on Gaza, which has so far killed almost 44,000 people, according to Palestinian officials, as well as displacing 1.9mn of the enclave’s 2.3mn inhabitants and reducing most of it to rubble.
The fighting has also triggered legal proceedings at the International Court of Justice, which deals with cases against countries, rather than individuals.
That court, the highest in the UN system, is hearing a case brought by South Africa accusing Israel of genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza. Israel has vehemently denied the accusations.