In the past, the ICC has often issued its arrest warrants secretly and only subsequently made them public, so it would not necessarily be announced even if it were to be approved.<\/p>\n
The Foreign Affairs Ministry and the State Attorney\u2019s Office did not respond immediately to requests for comment on the report.<\/p>\n
Arrest warrants were issued against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant in November 2024, after the ICC\u2019s then-chief prosecutor Karim Khan filed a public request for the warrants in May 2024.<\/p>\n
Khan alleged at the time that the two leaders were responsible for the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity amid Israel\u2019s campaign in Gaza, waged against the Hamas terror group after its invasion, massacres, and hostage-takings on October 7, 2023.<\/p>\n
\t The court had also initially issued warrants for several top Hamas officials, but dropped them after they were killed by Israel during the war. The Haaretz report did not mention any further warrants for leaders from the terror group, which remains the de facto regime of about half the Strip.<\/p>\n Last year, The Wall Street Journal reported that Khan had been preparing arrest warrants<\/a> for Ben Gvir and Smotrich before Khan went on leave amid allegations of sexual misconduct. He has not been replaced.<\/p>\n The prosecutor reportedly sought the ministers\u2019 arrest over their role in expanding settlements in the West Bank \u2013 actions which the International Court of Justice said in July 2024 in an advisory opinion violate the Geneva Convention\u2019s prohibition on transferring civilians to occupied territories.<\/p>\n Jerusalem\u2019s stance is that the opinion was illegitimate since numerous UN resolutions, as well as bilateral Israeli-Palestinian agreements, have established that the correct framework for resolving the conflict should be political, not legal.<\/p>\n Israel also rejects the argument that the Geneva Convention applies to the West Bank, in large part on the basis that the territory \u2014 which Israel captured from Jordan in the 1967 Six-Day War, but never annexed \u2014 was never a sovereign state.<\/p>\n \t Israel insists it acts in accordance with international law, in regard to both its West Bank policies and the conduct of its wars.<\/p>\n It notes that when fighting, it takes measures to avoid civilian casualties, including issuing evacuation warnings before attacking targets, using precision munitions to strike them, and facilitating the flow of humanitarian aid.<\/p>\n Israel also rejects the jurisdiction of the Hague-based ICC to arrest or prosecute its leaders, having never joined the international conventions that created it, and argues that the membership of the Palestinian Authority does not grant the ICC jurisdiction either, due to explicit provisions of the Oslo Accords.<\/p>\n \t The ICC has no enforcement methods and relies on the cooperation of party nations to carry out its warrants.<\/p>\n Belgium, Belize, Bolivia, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Namibia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, and Switzerland have all explicitly said they would honor the arrest warrants if Netanyahu traveled to their countries.<\/p>\n Others, including Argentina, the Czech Republic, Romania, and Poland, have said they wouldn\u2019t arrest Netanyahu. Hungary also said it would not arrest Netanyahu \u2013 and hosted him<\/a>, despite the warrant \u2013 during the administration of its former prime minister, Viktor Orban.<\/p>\n The United States, which is not a party to the Rome Statute, has backed Israel, and has even gone so far as to sanction ICC officials<\/a> involved in the cases against Netanyahu and Gallant.<\/p>\n
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\n\t\tIsraeli Prime Minister Benjamin (left) Netanyahu at the Knesset, November 11, 2024. (Yonatan Sindel\/Flash90); An exterior view of the International Criminal Court, or ICC, in The Hague, Netherlands, on April 30, 2024. (AP\/Peter Dejong); Then-defense Minister Yoav Gallant speaks during a press conference at the Kirya military headquarters in Tel Aviv, on November 5, 2024. (Miriam Alster\/Flash90)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/F250731WH53-640x400.jpg\")
<\/a>
\n\t\tView of the settlement of Efrat, Gush Etzion, in the West Bank, July 31, 2025. (Wisam Hashlamoun\/Flash90)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/F260312DP00009-640x400.jpg\")
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\n\t\tJews seen in the Chavat Meir La\u2019Aretz outpost in the Binyamin region of the West Bank, March 12, 2026. (Dor Pazuelo\/Flash90)<\/p>\n
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