Washington:

The United States “fundamentally rejects” a decision by the International Criminal Court to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant, the White House said Thursday.

“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 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, but Hamas has not confirmed his death.

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