(TargetDailyNews.com) – The Israeli government is growing worried that the International Criminal Court may soon put out arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other senior government officials. At issue is how the Jewish nation is prosecuting the war in Gaza.
Israeli sources are telling media they suspect the ICC will call for the arrests because it believes Israel’s military offensive is too harsh, and that Israel may be stopping humanitarian aid from reaching Gaza.
The International Criminal Court is based in The Hague in the Netherlands. While any arrest warrants it issues could frustrate travel plans for Israeli leaders subject to them, the ICC cannot simply send police to arrest the leaders.
Reports on Israeli leadership reactions are mixed. Anonymous sources have told some media outlets that the fears about how such arrest warrants would be seen by the international community have affected government decisions. However, that’s not what top Israeli officials are saying in public.
Israel Katz, the nation’s foreign minister, said he expects the court to “refrain from issuing arrest warrants,” which sounded more like a warning than an observation. Nevertheless, Katz said, Israel will not back and will “continue to fight.”
Prime Minister Netanyahu flatly denied that worries about ICC actions are affecting policy. On the social media platform X, Netanyahu wrote that if such warrants are issued, they “will not affect Israel’s actions.” However, issuing warrants would “set a dangerous precedent,” he said, and would signal hostility to countries like Israel that are fighting terrorism.
Netanyahu continued, writing that Israel will not tolerate any attempt to arrest soldiers or national officials; “we will not bow to it,” he wrote.
Some in the U.S. legislature are none too pleased at the prospect either. On April 29th, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson called such warrants, if they are issued, “disgraceful” and “lawless.” He demanded that the Biden administration immediately condemn any such efforts by the ICC to “prevent such an abomination.”
A White House spokesperson released a statement on April 29th, noting that the U.S. is not a member of the ICC, and that “we do not support its investigation.”
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