The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants for Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and Muhammad Deif, a military commander in the Iran-backed group Hamas, alleging they committed crimes against humanity in the ongoing Gaza war.
All three are accused of committing war crimes connected to the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Hamas, an EU- and U.S-designated terrorist organization that is part of Tehran's network of proxies in the Middle East, and Israel's subsequent military intervention in the Gaza Strip.
Iran's backing of Hamas and Hezbollah, another Iran-supported militant group and political party that controls much of the southern part of Israel's neighbor, Lebanon, has sparked fears that the war in the Gaza Strip will engulf the Middle East.
Hezbollah is designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, while the European Union blacklists its armed wing but not its political party. Hezbollah’s political party has seats in the Lebanese parliament.
The court said the warrants had been classified as "secret" to protect witnesses and to safeguard the conduct of the investigations.
Israel, which claims it killed Deif in July, blasted the move as "a dark moment for the ICC."
Hamas, which has never officially acknowledged Deif's death, called the warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant an "important step toward justice."
The ICC said it had issued the arrest warrant for Deif as the prosecutor had not been able to determine whether he was dead.
His warrant shows charges of mass killings during the October 7 attack on Israel that left some 1,200 dead, as well as charges of rape and the taking of around 240 hostages in the attack.
"The Chamber considered that there are reasonable grounds to believe that both [Israeli] individuals intentionally and knowingly deprived the civilian population in Gaza of objects indispensable to their survival, including food, water, and medicine and medical supplies, as well as fuel and electricity, from at least 8 October 2023 to 20 May 2024," the ICC said in a statement.
SEE ALSO: ICC Prosecutor Seeks Warrants For Top Israeli, Hamas Leaders"This finding is based on the role of Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Gallant in impeding humanitarian aid in violation of international humanitarian law and their failure to facilitate relief by all means at its disposal," it said.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar called the move against Netanyahu and Gallant "absurd" in a post on X, saying it was an attack of Israel's right to self-defense.
"A dark moment for the ICC in The Hague, in which it lost all legitimacy for its existence and activity," Sa'ar said.
Tehran has yet to comment publicly on the warrants.
Neither the United States nor Israel have recognized the ICC's jurisdiction.
A U.S. National Security Council spokesperson said Washington "fundamentally rejects" the issuance of the arrest warrants and "the troubling process errors that led to this decision.
Meanwhile, the EU's top diplomat, Josep Borrell, said in a post on X that ICC decisions "are binding on all states party to the Rome Statute, which includes all EU Member States."
The court said Israel's acceptance of the court's jurisdiction was not required.
However, the court itself has no law enforcement levers to enforce warrants and relies on cooperation from its member states.