'What a disgrace': Netanyahu blasts ICC prosecutor for seeking arrest warrants against him and another Israeli official

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slammed International Criminal Court prosecutor Karim A. A. Khan for filing applications for arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant.

Khan has alleged that there are "reasonable grounds to believe" the two Israeli officials "bear criminal responsibility for ... war crimes and crimes against humanity."

'What a travesty of justice. What a disgrace.'

Khan is also seeking arrest warrants for several Hamas figures, alleging that there are "reasonable grounds to believe" those individuals "bear criminal responsibility for ... war crimes and crimes against humanity."

Israel has been striving to wipe out Hamas in response to the heinous October 7 attack last year when terrorists perpetrated slaughter, rapes, and kidnappings.

"Israel, like all States, has a right to take action to defend its population. That right, however, does not absolve Israel or any State of its obligation to comply with international humanitarian law. Notwithstanding any military goals they may have, the means Israel chose to achieve them in Gaza – namely, intentionally causing death, starvation, great suffering, and serious injury to body or health of the civilian population – are criminal," Khan said in a statement.

"The outrageous decision by the ICC prosecutor Karim Khan to seek arrest warrants against the democratically elected leaders of Israel, is a moral outrage of historic proportions. It will cast an everlasting mark of shame on the International Court," Netanyahu declared. "Israel is waging a just war against Hamas, a genocidal terrorist organization that perpetrated the worst attack on the Jewish people since the Holocaust."

He accused Khan of making a "false moral equivalence between the leaders of Israel and the henchman of Hamas. This is like creating a moral equivalence after September 11th between President Bush and Osama Bin Laden, or during World War II between FDR and Hitler. What a travesty of justice. What a disgrace," Netanyahu said.

President Joe Biden also characterized Khan's move as "outrageous."

"The ICC prosecutor’s application for arrest warrants against Israeli leaders is outrageous. And let me be clear: whatever this prosecutor might imply, there is no equivalence — none — between Israel and Hamas. We will always stand with Israel against threats to its security," Biden said in a statement.

Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, who has been an unabashed supporter of Israel's right to wage war in response to last year's attack, also criticized the ICC.

"Requesting arrest warrants for both Israel and Hamas leaders suggests there is a moral equivalence between them—there is none and it’s disgusting to suggest otherwise. The ICC's credibility is now in shambles and they have only themselves to thank," Fetterman declared in a tweet.

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