Here are the latest developments.
The International Criminal Court on Thursday issued arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and the former Israeli defense minister, Yoav Gallant, for crimes against humanity and war crimes in the Gaza Strip.
Karim Khan, the court’s chief prosecutor, had requested the arrest warrants in May for the two Israelis, alongside three top Hamas officials. Israel has fiercely contested the court’s allegations, which include the use of starvation as a weapon of war and “intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population.”
The court on Thursday also issued a warrant for the arrest of Muhammad Deif, Hamas’s military chief, for crimes against humanity, including murder, hostage taking and sexual violence. Israel said in August that it had killed Mr. Deif. Mr. Khan had also sought arrest warrants for Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas, and Ismail Haniyeh, another top figure in the militant group, both of whom were later killed by Israel.
The warrants added to Israel’s declining legitimacy on the world stage, where it has faced increasingly fierce condemnation over its conduct of the war against Hamas in Gaza. Israel insists that it fights in accordance with the international laws of war.
Netanyahu’s office condemned the I.C.C.’s decision to issue arrest the warrants, rejecting what it described as the court’s “absurd and false accusations.” “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will not surrender to the pressures,” the Israeli leader’s office said in a statement. “He will not recoil or withdraw until all of the war’s goals — that were set at the start of the battle — are achieved.”
One practical consequence of an I.C.C. arrest warrant: It will complicate Netanyahu’s travel. President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has severely curtailed his trips abroad since the I.C.C. issued a warrant for his arrest last year in relation to the invasion of Ukraine.
Putin has only tested the warrant once — in September, when he visited Mongolia, a country highly dependent on Russia.
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Izzat al-Rishq, a senior Hamas official, said in a statement that whether or not the two Israelis were arrested, “the truth that has been revealed is that international justice is with us and against the Zionist entity,” a reference to Israel. He did not immediately comment on the warrant for Muhammad Deif, the Hamas military chief.
Human Rights Watch welcomed news of the arrest warrants and said they “break through the perception that certain individuals are beyond the reach of the law.” Balkees Jarrah, associate international justice director at the organization, said the I.C.C.’s effectiveness “will depend on governments’ willingness to support justice no matter where abuses are committed and by whom,” adding: “These warrants should finally push the international community to address atrocities and secure justice for all victims in Palestine and Israel.”
The I.C.C. prosecutor had sought warrants for 3 Hamas leaders. At least 2 were killed.
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The International Criminal Court on Thursday issued an arrest warrant for a single Hamas official — not three as the chief prosecutor had initially sought in May. That’s because two of them have since been killed.
Karim Khan, the court’s chief prosecutor, requested the warrants after investigating Hamas’s attack on Israel in October 2023 and Israel’s subsequent bombardment and invasion of Gaza.
In May, Mr. Khan asked the court to issue warrants for Hamas’s top leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar; its political leader, Ismail Haniyeh; and its military chief, Muhammad Deif. He accused them of war crimes and crimes against humanity for the killing of civilians and the capture of hostages during the October 2023 attack, as well as maltreatment of and sexual violence against hostages during their captivity in Gaza.
The requests required approval by judges from the I.C.C., the world’s top criminal court. That took months. In the meantime, Mr. Haniyeh was assassinated in the Iranian capital, Tehran, in July, a killing widely attributed to Israel. The court subsequently announced that it had terminated proceedings against him. And Israeli forces killed Mr. Sinwar in a firefight in Gaza in October.
As for Mr. Deif, Israel claimed to have killed him in an airstrike in Gaza in October. On Thursday, the court said it was “not in a position to determine whether Mr. Deif has been killed or remains alive” and was therefore issuing the warrant for his arrest.
Matthew Mpoke Bigg contributed reporting.
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The I.C.C.’s arrest warrants were issued as Netanyahu met with a top U.S. official pushing for a cease-fire in the war between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. The warrants pertained only to Israel’s fight with Hamas in the Gaza Strip, but the conflict has expanded since they were first requested in May.
Israeli leaders criticized the decision to issue arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant. “The decision has chosen the side of terror and evil over democracy and freedom,” said Isaac Herzog, the Israeli president, accusing the court of turning “the very system of justice into a human shield for Hamas’s crimes against humanity.” Itamar Ben-Gvir, the hardline Israeli national security minister, said Israel should annex the occupied West Bank in response to the court’s decision.
Benny Gantz, an Israeli opposition leader and critic of Netanyahu, slammed the warrants as “a historic disgrace that will never be forgotten.” Many in Israel still see the war in Gaza — launched last year in response to Hamas’s attack on southern Israel — as fundamentally just. While Netanyahu’s opponents have criticized his government’s failure to bring home the hostages taken by Hamas in that attack, there is less criticism over the civilian toll in Gaza.
Israel is not a member of the I.C.C. and does not recognize its jurisdiction in Israel or in Gaza, so Netanyahu and Gallant will not face any risk of arrest at home. But the warrants mean that they could be arrested if they travel to one of the court’s 124 member nations. That includes most European countries, though not the United States.
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Israel strikes near Beirut as the U.S. pushes a cease-fire in Lebanon.
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Israel resumed its bombing campaign on Thursday in the Hezbollah-controlled area south of Beirut, as a top U.S. envoy visited Israel to talk to officials there and try to nail down the terms of a cease-fire between the two warring sides.
Amos Hochstein, the senior Biden administration official, was expected to meet on Thursday with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to Omer Dostri, the prime minister’s spokesman. A day earlier, Mr. Hochstein wrapped up two days of talks with Lebanese officials and spoke of having made “additional progress” in the quest to end Israel’s yearlong conflict with the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.
Speaking to reporters in Beirut on Wednesday, Mr. Hochstein said he would go to Israel “to try to bring this to a close if we can.”
After days of tense calm in the Lebanese capital, Israel issued new evacuation orders early on Thursday for the Dahiya, the densely packed area south of the city where Hezbollah holds sway. That was soon followed by airstrikes, which the Israeli military said had targeted the group’s command headquarters and military infrastructure.
Israel’s attacks in and around Beirut intensified in the run-up to Mr. Hochstein’s visit to Lebanon, a strategy that analysts said was intended to pressure Hezbollah into agreeing to a cease-fire on terms favorable to Israel.
There still appear to be a number of sticking points that would need to be hashed out in any truce deal, including Israeli officials’ demand that they be able to act militarily against Hezbollah if it were to break the terms of an agreement. That is likely to be viewed by Hezbollah and the Lebanese government as an infringement on the country’s sovereignty.
In a televised address on Wednesday during Mr. Hochstein’s visit to Beirut, Hezbollah’s new leader, Naim Qassem, said that the group had provided its response to the U.S. cease-fire proposal, and that peace now depended on Israel’s response and the “seriousness” of Mr. Netanyahu.
If negotiations broke down, he warned, Hezbollah was prepared for a “long war.”
Israel’s conflict with Hezbollah, a group backed by Iran, escalated in September, and has killed more than 3,500 people in Lebanon and displaced almost a quarter of the population. It is now the bloodiest conflict inside Lebanon since the country’s civil war, which lasted from 1975 to 1990.
Here is what else to know:
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West Bank raid: Israeli security forces killed nine Palestinians in and around Jenin, in the occupied West Bank, over the last two days, according to a statement by the Israeli Army and the Shin Bet security service. The deaths occurred in an Israeli airstrike and in gun battles during a two-day raid that the Israeli authorities said targeted Palestinian militants. Wafa, the Palestinian Authority’s official news agency, said that the raid caused extensive damage to infrastructure and that more than 19 people were injured.
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Assassination plot: Three Palestinian residents of Hebron in the West Bank were indicted in an Israeli military court this week on charges of plotting to assassinate the national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, and his son, according to a joint statement by the Israel Police and Shin Bet. The authorities accused the primary defendant, Ismail Ibrahim Awadi, of monitoring Mr. Ben-Gvir’s travel routes and methods and of contacting Hezbollah and Hamas militants with the aim of getting weapons.
Adam Rasgon and Myra Noveck contributed reporting.