Israeli lead­ers believed to be tar­gets of ICC arrest war­rants over war in Gaza

Israeli lead­ers, includ­ing Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Netanyahu, could be served arrest war­rants this week from the Inter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court on charges relat­ed to the country’s mil­i­tary cam­paign in Gaza.
Israeli and oth­er for­eign offi­cials report­ed­ly believe Hamas lead­ers face arrest war­rants too.
The ICC has not con­firmed its plans, but senior offi­cials in the Israeli gov­ern­ment are grow­ing increas­ing­ly con­cerned that the war­rants will be issued, accord­ing to mul­ti­ple reports. Netanyahu, in par­tic­u­lar, is “ter­ri­fied and abnor­mal­ly stressed,” per the Israeli news­pa­per Maariv.

Israeli Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Netanyahu deliv­ers his speech after a meet­ing with Ger­man Chan­cel­lor Olaf Scholz in Jerusalem, Sun­day, March 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Cor­rea, Pool)

The prime min­is­ter has report­ed­ly been speak­ing fre­quent­ly on the phone to pre­vent such an out­come, with the Biden admin­is­tra­tion among those with whom he has spo­ken. While Pres­i­dent Joe Biden and Netanyahu have had their rifts, …