Biden calls ICC warrant for Israeli PM 'outrageous'

 

The International Criminal Court (ICC) building is pictured on November 21, 2024 in The Hague. [AFP.]

US President Joe Biden called the International Criminal Court's arrest warrants for top Israeli leaders "outrageous" in a statement Thursday.

"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 defense 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.

In an earlier statement, the White House said it "fundamentally rejects" the calls for arrests.

"We remain deeply concerned by the prosecutor's rush to seek arrest warrants and the troubling process errors that led to this decision. The United States has been clear that the ICC does not have jurisdiction over this matter," a National Security Council spokesperson said.

The statement made no mention of an ICC arrest warrant also issued for Mohammed Deif, the military chief of Hamas.

Mike Waltz, the incoming national security advisor under US president-elect Donald Trump's administration, defended Israel and promised a "strong response to the antisemitic bias of the ICC & UN come January."

"The ICC has no credibility and these allegations have been refuted by the US government," Waltz said on social media platform X.

His comments reflected a wider outrage among Republicans, with some calling for the US Senate to sanction the ICC, which counts 124 national members who are in theory obliged to arrest individuals subject to warrants.

Neither the United States nor Israel is a member of the ICC and both have rejected its jurisdiction.

The Hague-based court said Thursday that the warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant were issued "for crimes against humanity and war crimes committed from at least 8 October 2023 until at least 20 May 2024."

A warrant was also issued for Deif, whom Israel claimed was killed in an air strike in Gaza in July. Hamas has not confirmed his death.