Right-wing Israeli minister Smotrich says the ICC wants to arrest | Israel-Palestine War News

Smotrich is the third Israeli soldier to be prosecuted by the ICC, after Netanyahu and Gallant, for their war crimes in Gaza.

Israel’s right-wing Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said he was informed that the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague has requested an arrest warrant.

Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, Smotrich did not say who informed him of the document the previous evening. The licensing process is confidential.

Smotrich called the arrest warrants against the Israeli authorities a “declaration of war”, adding: “And in the face of a declaration of war, we will fight back and retaliate.”

He also attacked the “criminal group wrongly called the Palestinian Authority”, expressing the Israeli government’s anger at what it sees as Palestinian support for international legal action over Israel’s military operations in Gaza.

Announcing the fight after the news of the arrest, Smotrich said he would “sign the order to withdraw from Khan al-Ahmar”, and relocate the Palestinians from the village in the West Bank that has endured. many years of legal battle and the Israeli authorities to survive.

In November 2024, the ICC released construction documents to Netanyahu and his former minister Yoav Gallant for “crimes against humanity and war crimes” committed during Israel’s murderous war in Gaza.

Judges and prosecutors at the ICC have been dismissed by banks, credit card companies and tech giants like Amazon as a result of sanctions brought in by the Trump administration.

The court also issued arrest warrants for several Hamas leaders who were killed following Israeli operations.

The ICC charges are said to be related to Smotrich forced migration laws for Palestinians, his support for moving Israeli settlers to the occupied territories, and what he is saying can be “justified and moral“that Palestinians are starving in Gaza. If approved, it would make Smotrich the third Israeli to be investigated by the court, after all Netanyahu and Gallant.

The United Kingdom and four other countries last year imposed sanctions on Smotrich and another right-wing Israeli minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, after repeatedly accusing them of inciting violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.

Smotrich has called for a permanent conquest of Gaza and the resettlement of Jewish settlements that Israel abandoned in 2005, proposals that Netanyahu has rejected.