Today, Sunday, the International Criminal Court denied the validity of reports that secret arrest warrants had been issued against five additional Israeli officials, stressing that the information published by the Israeli newspaper “Haaretz” was “inaccurate.”
The denial came hours after a report published by the Hebrew newspaper, citing an unnamed diplomatic source, in which he spoke about the issuance of secret arrest warrants against “three political officials and two military leaders” in Israel, without revealing their identities or the date of issuance of those warrants.
The International Criminal Court described this news as “inaccurate,” in a brief response that ended the controversy raised by the Israeli reports during the past hours.
Haaretz had indicated that the court deliberately kept some arrest orders secret to protect investigations and witnesses, at a time when previous reports spoke of studying files related to additional Israeli officials against the backdrop of the war in Gaza.
The newspaper added that the court had previously issued, in November 2024, two arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Galant, against the backdrop of accusations of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip.
The First Pre-Trial Chamber of the International Criminal Court confirmed those memorandums, while the court later rejected the appeals and legal appeals submitted by Israel to cancel them.
This judicial debate comes in light of the continuing political and humanitarian repercussions of the war in Gaza, which ended with a ceasefire agreement after two years of bloody confrontations, and resulted, according to circulated data, in more than 72 thousand deaths and more than 172 thousand wounded, in addition to widespread destruction that affected about 90% of the civilian infrastructure in the Strip.
The International Criminal Court, headquartered in The Hague, is the international judicial body responsible for prosecuting those accused of committing war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide, while Israel refuses to recognize the court’s authority to consider files related to the Palestinian territories.
