The possibility of an arrest warrant for war crimes and crimes against humanity infuriated Benjamin Netanyahu.
He referred to it as "a moral outrage of historic proportions". Israel has been "waging a just war with Hamas, a genocidal terrorist organisation that perpetrated the worst strike on the Jewish people since the Holocaust."
Mr. Netanyahu launched a fierce personal assault, accusing International Criminal Court (ICC) head prosecutor Karim Khan of being one of the "great antisemites in modern times."
He said that Mr. Khan was similar to Nazi German judges who denied Jews their fundamental rights and permitted the Holocaust. He was "callously pouring gas on the fires of antisemitism that are boiling around the world" by deciding to seek arrest warrants against Israel's prime minister and defense minister.
The video that was made public by his office had Mr. Netanyahu speaking in English. When he wants his message to be seen by the international audience in the US that matters most to him, he takes that action.
A statement released by Mr. Khan, the top prosecutor of the International Criminal Court and British King's Counsel, included pages of carefully crafted legal language that incited the fury voiced by the prime minister and repeated by Israel's political leadership.
Word for word, line by line, they build into a crushing litany of accusations directed against Israel's prime minister and minister of defense, as well as the three most important Hamas leaders.
Mr. Khan's argument for obtaining arrest warrants is based on his resolve to implement international law and the rules of armed conflict to all participants, regardless of their identity.
"No foot soldier, no his superior, no civilian leader - no one - can act with impunity." He argues that the law cannot be applied arbitrarily. "We will be creating conditions for its collapse" if that occurs.
What is really upsetting people, not just in Israel, is the determination to hold all sides' actions to the standard of international law.
The US President, Joe Biden, called the request for an arrest warrant "outrageous". There's an "no proportionality - none - between Israel and Hamas" .
Hamas said that the ICC prosecutor was "equating the victim with the executioner" and requested that the accusations made against its leaders be dropped. It claimed that "the Israeli occupation committed thousands of crimes" and that it was seven months too late to urge the issuance of arrest warrants for the Israeli leadership.
Mr. Khan lays out his argument that both sides have committed a number of war crimes and crimes against humanity without drawing any clear parallels between them.
Furthermore, he emphasizes that "an international armed conflict between Israel as well as Palestine, and a non-international armed conflict between Israel and Hamas" surrounds this most recent battle.
Because Palestine has observer status at the UN and was able to ratify the Rome Statute, which established the ICC, the court views Palestine as a state.
According to Mr. Netanyahu, the Palestinians will never get independence while he is in office.
Human rights organizations have praised the ICC prosecutor's efforts to apply the law to all parties, rather than drawing shameful and unfounded comparisons between "these atrocious terrorists and a government elected by the people of Israel," as Israel's President Isaac Herzog phrased it.
Prominent Israeli human rights group Btselm said that the warrants demonstrated "Israel's rapid decline into a moral abyss."
"The international community is signalling to Israel which it can no longer maintain its policy of violence, killing as well as destruction without accountability," it said.
Human rights advocates have long lamented the fact that strong Western nations, especially the US, ignore Israeli breaches of international law while denouncing and punishing those governments that do not share their views.
They feel that Mr. Khan and his group have been waiting a long time to take these steps.
According to Mr. Khan, the three principal Hamas commanders were involved in war crimes that included torture, rape, murder, hostage-taking, and extermination.
The persons mentioned are Ismail Haniyeh, the director of the Hamas political bureau, Mohammed Deif, the commander of the organization's military arm, and Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas in Gaza.
Karim Khan and his colleagues conducted interviews with victims and survivors of the October 7 assaults as part of their inquiry.
"The love within a family, the deepest bonds between a parent as well as a child were contorted to inflict unfathomable torment through calculated cruelty and extreme callousness," he stated, referring to Hamas' attack on core human values.
Mr. Khan said that Israel is entitled to self-defense. However, "unconscionable crimes" didn't "absolve Israel of its obligation to comply without international humanitarian law" .
He claimed that by failing to do so, warrants for the arrest of Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Prime Minister Netanyahu were issued for offenses such as using civilian famine as a weapon of war, killing, annihilation, and deliberate assaults on human targets.
The International Criminal Court: What is it?
President Biden has chastised Israel repeatedly since Israel's reaction to the Hamas strikes on October 7, citing concerns that Israel was killing too many Palestinian civilians and demolishing too much civilian infrastructure in Gaza.
However, in an attempt to strike a delicate balance with a close ally that he has always backed, Mr. Biden and his administration have not made their intentions publicly known.
Mr. Khan is quite clear in his understanding. In order to accomplish its military objectives in Gaza, he claims, Israel has selected illegal methods, "namely, intentionally causing death, starvation, great suffering, and serious injury" to populations.
Now, an ICC judge panel will decide whether or not to issue the arrest warrants. At that point, if states ratified the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court could imprison the men, they would have to.
The United States, China, and Russia are not among the 124 signatories. Israel has also not signed.
However, since the Palestinians are signatories, the ICC has decided that it is legally permitted to try crimes committed during the conflict.
The longest-serving prime leader of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, would not be able to visit key Western friends without running the possibility of being arrested if the arrest warrants are issued.
The International Criminal Court's activities, according to UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, are "not helpful to reaching a moment to breathe in the fighting, getting hostages out or humanitarian aid in". However, if the warrants are granted, Britain would have to carry out the arrests unless it could convincingly argue that Mr. Netanyahu was immune from prosecution.
For Mr. Gallant and Mr. Netanyahu, the US is a crucial exception. The White House's stance that the ICC lacks jurisdiction over the fight may deepen the division over the war among Joe Biden's Democratic party.
The ICC's move has already been praised by progressives. Democrats who are ardent supporters of Israel may back Republican efforts to enact legislation that would impose sanctions on ICC officials or bar them from entering the US.
A few weeks ago, as rumors of imminent charges swirled across America, Europe, and the Middle East, a handful of Republican senators threatened Mr. Khan and his staff with language straight out of a Mafia film.
"Target Israel whereas we will target you... you have been warned."
It would also prevent Yoav Gallant from traveling at will. He used phrases that opponents of Israel's actions have often used when declaring that Israel will besiege Gaza.
"I placed orders a complete siege on the Gaza Strip," Mr. Gallant said two days after the Hamas strikes on October 7. Everything is closed, there won't be any gasoline, food, or power, and we're behaving like human animals because we're battling them."
"Israel has intentionally consistently deprived the civilian population in all parts of Gaza of objects fundamental to human survival," Mr. Khan adds in his statement.
In certain places of Gaza, famine is already prevalent, while in others, it is on the verge.
Israel disputes the existence of a famine, arguing that UN mismanagement and Hamas thieving, not its blockade, are to blame for food shortages.
Ismail Haniyeh, the chairman of the Hamas political wing, may have to reconsider his frequent visits to meet with influential Arab leaders if an arrest warrant is issued for him. Like Israel, Qatar did not join the Rome Statute that established the International Criminal Court, thus he will probably be spending a lot more time there.
It is thought that Mohammed Deif and Yahya Sinwar, the other two indicted Hamas commanders, are hiding somewhere in Gaza. The burden on them is not much increased by an arrest warrant. For the last seven months, Israel has been attempting to murder them.
The warrant would also place Mr. Netanyahu in the same category of accused leaders as late Libyan Colonel Muammar Gaddafi and Russian President Vladmir Putin.
A warrant for Mr. Putin's arrest has been issued for the unauthorized removal and adoption of children from Ukraine into Russia.
Col. Gaddafi had an arrest warrant out for the murder and persecution of innocent citizens prior to being assassinated by his own people.
Benjamin Netanyahu, the head of a nation that takes great pride in its democracy, finds it unappealing company.
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