The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants on Thursday for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas leader Ibrahim Al-Masri on charges of alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity related to the Gaza conflict. This decision followed months of deliberations by the ICC judges.
In their decision, the ICC judges stated that there were reasonable grounds to believe Netanyahu and Gallant were criminally responsible for acts such as murder, persecution, and the use of starvation as a weapon of war. These acts were described as part of a ‘widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population of Gaza,’ according to Reuters.
The judges further asserted that the blockade on Gaza and the resulting lack of essential resources—including food, water, electricity, fuel, and medical supplies—had ‘created conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of part of the civilian population in Gaza.’ These conditions, they said, led to the deaths of civilians, including children, from malnutrition and dehydration.
The ICC’s decision elicited mixed reactions from world leaders. The Dutch government, host to the ICC in The Hague, announced that Netanyahu would be arrested under the Rome Statute if he were to set foot on Dutch soil. In contrast, Hungarian Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó strongly criticized the ICC’s decision.
‘This decision has brought shame on the international court system by placing an equal sign between the prime minister of a country attacked by a vicious terrorist attack and the leaders of the terrorist organization that carried out the attack. The decision is unacceptable,’ Szijjártó stated in a Facebook post.
President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for national security advisor, Mike Waltz, promised a strong response to the ICC’s decision. Waltz wrote on X that the ICC ‘has no credibility’ and asserted that Israel has lawfully defended its people and borders against genocidal terrorists. He also vowed that the incoming Trump administration would take action against what he described as ‘antisemitic bias’ at both the ICC and the United Nations.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán also took a sharp jab at the ICC, in his characteristically shrewd manner. On Friday Orbán announced that he would invite Netanyahu to visit Hungary, assuring that the ICC’s arrest warrant against him would ‘not be observed.’ Orbán called the ICC warrant unjustified and stated that the Israeli leader would be able to conduct negotiations in Hungary under proper and secure conditions.
ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan had discussed the potential issuance of an arrest warrant for Netanyahu and his defence minister in an interview with CNN back in May. At the time, Viktor Orbán reacted strongly, denouncing the prospect as ‘absurd and shameful’. Additionally, media reports surfaced suggesting that Orbán had instructed his ministers to explore the possibility of Hungary withdrawing from the ICC.
The ICC was established in 2002 under the Rome Statute and currently has 124 member states. These include all European countries, except for Türkiye, Belarus, the Vatican, and Monaco. Notably, the United States, Russia, China, Ukraine, and Israel, among others, are not members of the ICC.
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