The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued an arrest warrant for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, accusing him of war crimes in Gaza.
The court has also issued arrest warrants for Israel’s former defence minister Yoav Gallant and Hamas leader Mohammed Deif. Israel said in August it had killed Deif in a Gaza airstrike earlier this year.
The ICC said there were “reasonable grounds” to believe that Mr Netanyahu and Mr Gallant “bear criminal responsibility for the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare” and that they had “intentionally and knowingly deprived” Gaza’s civilians of food, water, medicine, medical supplies and fuel and electricity.
The court also claimed that “each bear criminal responsibility as civilian superiors for the war crime of intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population”.
The conflict in Gaza was triggered by an attack inside Israel by Hamas on 7 October last year, during which around 1,200 Israelis were killed, and another 251 people were taken hostage.
Israel’s retaliatory war from land and air, alongside a blockade, has killed 44,000 Palestinians, the majority women and children, according to health authorities inside the besieged territory. Around 90 per cent of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents have been forced from their homes.
The ICC said it had found reasonable grounds to believe that Hamas’ Deif was “responsible for the crimes against humanity of murder; extermination; torture; and rape and other form of sexual violence; as well as the war crimes of murder, cruel treatment, torture; taking hostages; outrages upon personal dignity; and rape and other form of sexual violence”.
The move is a dramatic escalation of legal proceedings over the war in Gaza as it turns Mr Netanyahu and the co-accused into suspects wanted internationally and is likely to further isolate them and complicate efforts to negotiate a ceasefire to end the 13-month conflict.
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