International court may issue arrest warrants for Israeli leaders, officials fear
Israel’s Foreign Ministry has warned that the International Criminal Court may issue arrest warrants against the Jewish nation’s top leaders as part of the body’s investigation into their war actions.
The ministry alerted Israeli missions Sunday night of the “rumors,” warning that senior political and military officials could be targeted while overseas, a possibility first highlighted by The Post.
The ICC, based in the the Hague in the Netherlands, made no comments over the rumors and has yet to give any official notice that it would seek warrants in its investigation over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The court had launched a probe three years ago into alleged war crimes committed by Israel and Palestinian militants during the 2014 Israel-Hamas war.
Israel was accused of targeting Red Cross installations during the conflict and illegally establishing settlements in the contested West Bank territory.
Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups were accused of deliberately attacking civilians and using Palestinians as human shields against Israeli strikes.
The investigation has become even more complex with the current conflict in Gaza, where such war crimes have allegedly been repeated by Israel and Hamas.
The International Court of Justice, a separate body that probes countries as opposed to individuals, is looking into current allegations that Israel has committed acts of genocide in Gaza over the high civilian death toll.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has slammed the courts’ investigations and said Friday that his nation “will never accept any attempt by the ICC to undermine its inherent right of self-defense.
“The threat to seize the soldiers and officials of the Middle East’s only democracy and the world’s only Jewish state is outrageous. We will not bow to it,” he wrote in a post on X.
Neither Israel nor the US accepts the ICC’s jurisdiction, but Israeli leaders could find themselves at risk if they end up in any of the 124 nations that recognize the court.
Ringing the early warning signs Thursday in an op-ed to The Post, Douglas Murray, a senior fellow at the National Review Institute, warned that ICC prosecutor Karim Khan would seek arrest warrants for several Israeli leaders, including Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
Should such warrants be issued, Netanyahu would find himself alongside Russian President Vladimir Putin as a major world leader wanted for alleged war crimes.
With Post wires
