Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu railed in opposition to the Worldwide Legal Court docket (ICC) on Wednesday for its resolution earlier this week to request arrest warrants for high Israeli and Hamas officers.
Karim Khan, the ICC’s chief prosecutor, introduced he was looking for arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Israeli Protection Minister Yoav Gallant, in addition to high Hamas officers Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh.
“It’s outrageous,” Netanyahu advised Fox Information host Sean Hannity. “It is a rogue prosecutor who’s gone amok. He is out to demonize the one and solely Jewish state and the one democracy within the Center East, and it is each false and harmful.”
Khan accused Netanyahu and Gallant of battle crimes and crimes in opposition to humanity. He alleged seven crimes dedicated by the highest Israeli officers, together with the “hunger of civilians as a way of warfare,” “deliberately directing assaults in opposition to a civilian inhabitants” and “willful killing.”
Netanyahu criticized the ICC for requesting arrest warrants in opposition to Israeli and Hamas officers on the identical time, arguing there may be an try and create a “false symmetry” between the “democratically elected leaders of Israel and the terrorist tyrants of Hamas.”
He added that the ICC’s resolution can be like requesting arrest warrants for Winston Churchill, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Adolf Hitler throughout World Battle II or President George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden throughout the battle on terror.
NIGHT OF INTENSE FIGHTING MARKS ISRAELI ADVANCE DEEPER INTO RAFAH
Israel launched its battle after Hamas militants killed roughly 1,200 folks, most of whom had been civilians, and kidnapped roughly 250 extra to Gaza, in response to the Related Press.
The Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Well being, which doesn’t distinguish between the deaths of civilians and combatants, stated greater than 35,000 Palestinians have been killed throughout the battle.
President Biden rejected the ICC’s utility for arrest warrants in opposition to Israeli officers, saying there may be “no equivalence — none — between Israel and Hamas.”
“It is clear Israel needs to do all it may possibly to make sure civilian safety,” Biden stated.
He added: “Opposite to allegations in opposition to Israel made by the Worldwide Court docket of Justice, what’s taking place is just not genocide. We reject that. We’ll all the time stand with Israel and the threats in opposition to their safety.”
AUSTIN SAYS NO EVIDENCE THAT ISRAEL IS COMMITTING ‘GENOCIDE’ IN GAZA STRIP WAR AGAINST HAMAS
Netanyahu additionally criticized the ICC for alleging Israel has been ravenous Palestinian civilians.
Khan stated in an announcement that since Oct. 8, Israel has imposed a “complete siege” of Gaza that concerned the closing of three border crossing factors that “arbitrarily limit[ed] the switch of important provides — together with meals and medication — by the border crossings after they had been reopened.”
“The siege additionally included slicing off cross-border water pipelines from Israel to Gaza — Gazans’ principal supply of fresh water — for a protracted interval starting 9 October 2023, and slicing off and hindering electrical energy provides from no less than 8 October 2023 till right now. This passed off alongside different assaults on civilians, together with these queuing for meals; obstruction of assist supply by humanitarian companies; and assaults on and killing of assist employees, which compelled many companies to stop or restrict their operations in Gaza,” the assertion learn partially.
Netanyahu referred to as the cost a “pack of lies” and “false.”
“We put in 20,000 vehicles — 500,000 tons of meals and medication. The value of meals in Gaza has plummeted as a result of markets do not lie,” he advised Hannity. “Folks obtain about 3,000 energy per day in comparison with the two,000 that is required. It is a bunch of baloney.”
Home Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., stated Congress is reviewing its choices to reply to the ICC’s resolution, together with the potential for sanctions.
A panel of three ICC judges should resolve within the coming months whether or not to grant the arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Gallant, Sinwar, Deif and Haniyeh.