Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday that the arrest warrant issued against him by the International Criminal Court over his conduct of the Gaza war will not stop him from defending Israel.
“Any outrageous anti-Israel decision will not stop us – and it will not stop me – from defending our country by all means,” Netanyahu said in a video statement. “We will not bow to pressure,” he vowed.
The prime minister, along with his former Defense Minister Yoav Galant, has been accused of “war crimes” and “crimes against humanity” over Israel’s actions in Gaza.
He described Thursday’s decision as a “black day in the nation’s history.”
“The International Criminal Court in The Hague, which was established to protect humanity, has today become the enemy of humanity,” he said, adding that the allegations were “completely baseless”.
Israel has been fighting in Gaza since October 2023, when a cross-border attack by Hamas militants killed 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Its retaliatory campaign has killed 44,056 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, which the United Nations considers credible.
UN agencies have warned of a serious humanitarian crisis, including possible famine, due to food and medicine shortages in Gaza.
The court said it found “reasonable grounds” to believe that Netanyahu and Galant committed war crimes such as starvation as a method of warfare, as well as crimes against humanity of murder, torture and other inhumane acts. Have taken “criminal responsibility”.
Netanyahu said the court was accusing Israel of “imaginary crimes” while ignoring “real war crimes, terrible war crimes being committed against us and against many others around the world.”
In addition to Netanyahu and Gallant, the court also issued an arrest warrant for Hamas military wing chief Mohammed Deif, whom Israel said was killed in an airstrike last July.
Hamas has never confirmed his death.
Netanyahu mocked the court’s decision to issue a warrant for “the body of Mohammed Deif”.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
