ICC arrest warrant for Netanyahu over Gaza

Israeli PM angrily rejects international court's war crimes allegations

- Julian Borger, Andrew Roth

The international criminal court has issued arrest warrants for the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, the country's former defence minister Yoav Gallant and the Hamas military leader Mohammed Deif for alleged war crimes relating to the Gaza war.

It is the first time that leaders of a democracy and western-aligned state have been charged by the court, in the most momentous decision of its 22-year history.

Netanyahu and Gallant are at risk of arrest if they visit any of the 124 countries that signed the Rome statute establishing the court.

Israel claims to have killed Deif in an airstrike in July, but the court's pre-trial chamber said it would "continue to gather information" to confirm his death.

The chamber ruled that there were reasonable grounds to believe Netanyahu and Gallant bore criminal responsibility as co-perpetrators for "the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts".

The three-judge panel also said it had found reasonable grounds to believe Deif was responsible for crimes against humanity and war crimes including murder, torture, rape and hostage taking relating to the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 in which fighters killed more than 1,200 people, mostly Israeli civilians, and kidnapped 250.

Netanyahu's office denounced the chamber's decision as "antisemitic".

"Israel utterly rejects the false and absurd charges of the international criminal court, a biased and discriminatory political body," the office said in a statement, adding that "no war is more just than the war Israel has been waging in Gaza".