Israel's Gaza invasion - Day 411

The International Criminal Court (ICC) decision to issue arrest warrants for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence minister “ignores” the country’s right to defend itself, Argentina’s leader said according to AFP.

Argentina “declares its deep disagreement” with the decision, which “ignores Israel’s legitimate right to self-defence against the constant attacks by terrorist organisations like Hamas and Hezbollah,” President Javier Milei said in a statement on the X social media network.

“Israel faces brutal aggression, inhumane hostage-taking and indiscriminate attacks on its population,” Milei said in his reaction to the ICC warrants.

“Criminalising the legitimate defence of a nation while ignoring these atrocities is an act that distorts the spirit of international justice,” he added.

US President Joe Biden called the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrants for top Israeli leaders “outrageous” in a statement, AFP reports.

“Whatever the ICC might imply, there is no equivalence — none — between Israel and Hamas,” Biden said after the international tribunal issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant on suspicion of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

“We will always stand with Israel against threats to its security,” the president added.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that an arrest warrant issued against him by the International Criminal Court (ICC) over his conduct in the Gaza bombardment would not stop him from defending Israel, AFP reports.

“No outrageous anti-Israel decision will prevent us — and it will not prevent me — from continuing to defend our country in every way,” Netanyahu said in a video statement. “We will not yield to pressure,” he vowed.

He described Thursday’s decision as a “dark day in the history of nations”.

“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 accusations were “utterly baseless”.

Netanyahu said the court was accusing Israel of “fictitious crimes”, while ignoring “the real war crimes, horrific war crimes being committed against us and against many others around the world”.

An Israeli state attorney has indicted an aide to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on charges of passing on classified documents with an intent to harm the state in a case that has rattled the country as it wages war on multiple fronts, Reuters reports.

Eli Feldstein was accused of illegally obtaining and releasing sensitive military information, hoping to sway public opinion and alleviate pressure on Netanyahu to make major concessions to secure the release of Israeli hostages in Gaza.

An Israeli soldier was separately charged with handing Feldstein the documents, which were allegedly retrieved from Gaza and suggested that Hamas wanted to sow discord in Israeli society to help it win a favourable hostage deal.

Both men deny the charges, which carry lengthy prison terms.

Read more here.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s spokesperson has said Britain respects the independence of the International Criminal Court after it issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his ex-defence chief and a Hamas leader, Reuters reports.

“We respect the independence of the International Criminal Court, which is the primary international institution for investigating and prosecuting the most serious crimes of international concern,” the spokesperson told reporters.

“There is no moral equivalence between Israel, a democracy, and Hamas and Lebanese Hezbollah, which are terrorist organisations. We remain focused on pushing for an immediate ceasefire to bring an end to the devastating violence in Gaza.”

Turkiye’s top diplomat has hailed as “a very important step” an ICC decision to issue arrest warrants for Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence minister over Israel’s actions in Gaza, AFP reports.

“This decision is an extremely important step in bringing to justice the Israeli authorities who committed genocide against Palestinians,” Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan wrote on X.

The US has rejected the decision by the International Criminal Court to issue arrest warrants for Israeli PM Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Gallant, a White House National Security Council spokesperson says, Al Jazeera reports.

“The United States fundamentally rejects the court’s decision to issue arrest warrants for senior Israeli officials,” the spokesperson said. “We remain deeply concerned by the prosecutor’s rush to seek arrest warrants and the troubling process errors that led to this decision.”

Netanyahu is “now officially a wanted man” after the ICC’s decision to issue arrest warrants for the Israeli leader and his former defence minister, Al Jazeera reports according to Amnesty International.

“Prime Minister Netanyahu is now officially a wanted man,” said Amnesty Secretary General Agnes Callamard. “ICC member states and the whole international community must stop at nothing until these individuals are brought to trial before the ICC’s independent and impartial judges.”

The European Union’s foreign policy chief has said International Criminal Court arrest warrants issued for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his former defence minister Yoav Gallant and Hamas’s military chief Mohammed Deif are “binding” and should be implemented, AFP reports.

“It is not a political decision. It is a decision of a court, of a court of justice, of an international court of justice. And the decision of the court has to be respected and implemented,” Joseph Borrell said during a visit to the Jordanian capital Amman.

“This decision is a binding decision and all states, all state parties of the court, which include all members of the European Union, are binding to implement this court decision,” he said after a joint news conference with Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi.

The ICC’s move now theoretically limits the movement of Netanyahu as any of the court’s 124 national members would be obliged to arrest him on their territory.

Jordan’s foreign minister Ayman Safadi says the International Criminal Court’s decision must be respected and implemented, adding the Palestinians deserved justice after what he termed Israel’s “war crimes” in Gaza, Al Jazeera reports.

Meanwhile, the French foreign ministry spokesman says that France’s reaction to the decision will be in line with the court’s statutes.

When asked during a news conference if France would arrest Netanyahu, Christophe Lemoine said it was a legally complicated question. “It’s a point that is legally complex so I’m not going to comment on it today,” he said.

The EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said that the decision to issue these warrants was “not political”, and that the court’s decision should be “respected and implemented”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accused the International Criminal Court of anti-Semitism after it issued arrest warrants against himself and his former defence minister, calling it “a modern-day Dreyfus trial”, AFP reports.

“The anti-Semitic decision of the International Criminal Court is comparable to the modern-day Dreyfus trial — and it will end in the same way,” Netanyahu said in a statement, referring to the 19th-century Alfred Dreyfus affair in which a Jewish army captain was wrongly convicted of treason in France.

Hamas has welcomed the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrants for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and its former defence minister Yoav Gallant, Reuters reports.

“We call on the International Criminal Court to expand the scope of accountability to all criminal occupation leaders,” the group said in a statement.

France’s foreign ministry spokesman has said that the country’s reaction to the International Criminal Court(ICC) issuing an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be in line with the court’s statutes, Reuters reports.

The Netherlands has said it is prepared to act upon the arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if needed, Dutch news agency ANP reported, citing the country’s foreign minister Caspar Veldkamp as its source, Reuters reports.

Judges at the ICC issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former defence chief Yoav Gallant, as well as Hamas leader Ibrahim Al-Masri, commonly known as Mohammed Deif, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir took to X to criticise the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) decision to issue arrest warrants for Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and the former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant.

The national security minister slammed the decision, calling it an “unprecedented disgrace, but not at all surprising”.

“The International Criminal Court in The Hague shows once again that it is anti-Semitic through and through,” Ben-Gvir wrote. “This is complete system madness. I support the Prime Minister in the just war.”

He added that the ideal response to the court’s decision is “applying sovereignty over all the territories of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), settlement in all parts of the country and severing ties with the terrorist authority (the Palestinian Authority), including sanctions”.

The International Criminal Court’s decision to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, is a “mark of shame” for the ICC, former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has said, Reuters reports.

Israel’s main opposition leader Yair Lapid also denounced the move by the Hague-based court, calling it “a reward for terrorism”.

There was no immediate comment from Netanyahu or Gallant.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has also issued an arrest warrant for Hamas military leader Mohammed Deif, Al Jazeera reports.

In a separate statement, the court also said that Deif, full name Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri, is subject to international arrest and it “unanimously” decided to issue the warrant against him “for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes committed on the territory of the State of Israel and the State of Palestine from at least 7 October 2023”.

The alleged crimes include firing rockets at Israeli territory and the October 7 attack that saw over 1,000 Israelis killed.

Israel claims to have killed Deif, the longtime leader of Hamas’s armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, in an air strike this past July. That attack had struck tents housing displaced Palestinians and a water distillation plant, killing at least 90 people and wounding 300 others.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued a statement regarding the arrest warrants issued for Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, alleging that they “oversaw attacks on civilians” and used “starvation as a weapon of war”, Reuters reports.

The ICC also said that Israel’s acceptance of the court’s jurisdiction was not required.

According to the statement, the court said it has “reasonable grounds” to believe that Netanyahu and Gallant “each bear criminal responsibility for the following crimes as co-perpetrators for committing the acts jointly with others: the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts”.

According to Reuters, the court said it revealed the warrants “in interest of the victims and their families”.

The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, Reuters reports.

Israel’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip has killed at least 44,056 Palestinians and wounded 104,268 since October 7, 2023, the enclave’s health ministry has said, Reuters reports.

Dozens of Palestinians are still trapped under the rubble in the two northern areas targeted overnight, Sheikh Radwan and Beit Lahiya, Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary reports.

“There are no Civil Defence crew or paramedics working in Beit Lahiya, adding to the misery there,” she reports.

According to Khoudary, those who have reached hospitals in the north are not able to get adequate treatment. “The hospitals are only operating as first-aid hospitals because they lack medical supplies and do not have intensive care units,” she adds.

“In the middle area, where we are right now, there has been intensive artillery shelling. We can hear this in the background,” Khoudary reports.

Israeli forces have rounded up 12 Palestinians across the occupied West Bank since last night, according to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society, Al Jazeera reports.

The arrests took place in the governorates of Nablus, Hebron, Ramallah, Bethlehem and Qalqliya, said the group.

During the arrests, Israeli forces threatened some of the detainees and their families, while damaging their homes, the group added.

Foreign Office spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch has regretted the UN Security Council’s inability to reach a consensus on a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, Radio Pakistan reports.

It comes after during last night’s vote, the United States was the only one out of the UNSC’s 15 members to use its veto powers to vote against the ceasefire resolution.

Baloch reiterated Pakistan’s call for an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire, unhindered access to humanitarian assistance for Gaza and full support to the UNRWA and its mandated humanitarian activities.

The Israeli military has bombed at least five crowded homes in northern Gaza earlier today with many casualties buried beneath the rubble, Palestinian health officials said, as troops deepened an incursion along the territory’s northern edge, Reuters reports.

Rescue operations were underway in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya, medics said. Local media put the number of fatalities at 66, most of whom it said had not been recovered.