Netanyahu rejects ICC prosecutor’s arrest bid
JERUSALEM, AFP — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday he rejected “with disgust” an application by the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) for his arrest warrant over alleged war crimes in Gaza.
ICC prosecutor Karim Khan applied for arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant as well as three top Hamas leaders, on suspicion of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
“I reject with disgust The Hague prosecutor’s comparison between democratic Israel and the mass murderers of Hamas,” Netanyahu said in a statement, referring to the city in the Netherlands where the court is based.
The prosecutor said he was seeking warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant for crimes including “wilful killing”, “extermination and/or murder”, and “starvation”.
“With what audacity do you dare compare the monsters of Hamas to the soldiers of the IDF [Israeli army], the most moral army in the world?” Netanyahu said.
“This is like creating a moral equivalence after September 11 between President [George W] Bush and Osama bin Laden, or during World War II between FDR [Franklin D Roosevelt] and Hitler.”
The war in Gaza broke out after Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel which resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Palestinian militants also took 252 hostages during the attack with 124 still being held in Gaza, including 37 the army says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive against Hamas has killed at least 35,562 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to data provided by the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
In the meantime, Germany said Monday the ICC prosecutor’s application for arrest warrants against the Israeli prime minister and his defence minister, as well as top Hamas leaders created a “false impression of equivalence”.
“The simultaneous application for arrest warrants against the Hamas leaders on the one hand and the two Israeli officials on the other has given the false impression of equivalence,” a spokesman for the German foreign ministry said in a statement.
