The United States President, Joe Biden, has denounced an “outrageous” application by the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor for an arrest warrant for Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and defense minister, Yoav Gallant.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken separately warned that efforts to secure a ceasefire in Israel’s war on Hamas in Gaza could be harmed by the move by the Hague-based court, AFP reports.
ICC prosecutor Karim Khan applied for arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant as well as three top Hamas leaders on suspicion of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
In the statement published by the ICC on its website, seen by The PUNCH, the prosecutor said he was seeking warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant for crimes including “wilful killing,” “extermination and/or murder” and “starvation.”
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“The ICC prosecutor’s application for arrest warrants against Israeli leaders is outrageous. And let me be clear: whatever this prosecutor might imply, there is no equivalence – none – between Israel and Hamas,” Biden said in a statement.
“We will always stand with Israel against threats to its security.”
Neither the United States nor Israel is a member of the ICC and both have rejected its jurisdiction.
Biden did not comment on the warrant requests for Yahya Sinwar, the head of the Palestinian Hamas movement in Gaza, and Ismail Haniyeh, the movement’s political chief.
Netanyahu on Monday also said he rejected “with disgust” an application by the prosecutor for his arrest warrant over alleged war crimes in Gaza.
According to AFP, the Israeli PM said, “I reject with disgust The Hague prosecutor’s comparison between democratic Israel and the mass murderers of Hamas.”
“With what audacity do you dare compare the monsters of Hamas to the soldiers of the IDF (Israeli army), the most moral army in the world?” Netanyahu said.
Biden’s expression of support for Netanyahu over the ICC bid comes despite recent disagreements with Israel over its conduct in the Gaza war.
Washington recently withheld a shipment of arms to Israel in a bid to warn off an offensive in the southern city of Rafah.
Top diplomat Blinken denounced the ICC application as “shameful” and warned it could harm ongoing efforts for a ceasefire in Israel’s war on Hamas following the militant group’s October 7 attack on Israel.
“The United States fundamentally rejects the announcement today from the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court,” Blinken said in a statement.
“We reject the prosecutor’s equivalence of Israel with Hamas. It is shameful.”
The war in Gaza broke out after Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Palestinian militants also took 252 hostages during the attack, of whom 124 remain held in Gaza including 37 the army says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive against Hamas has killed at least 35,562 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to data provided by the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
