Hamas celebrates ICC arrest warrants and urges the court to ‘expand its scope’ to all Israeli leaders

The ICC also originally discussed issuing warrants against now-deceased Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar and Ismail Haniyeh and kept Mohammad Deif’s name on the list.

By Vered Weiss, World Israel News

Hamas welcomed the ICC’s announcement of arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

The ICC also originally discussed issuing warrants against now-deceased Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar and Ismail Haniyeh and kept Mohammad Deif’s name on the list.

Although Hamas denied Deif is dead, Israel said he was killed in a targeted strike in August.

“We call on the International Criminal Court to expand the scope of accountability to all criminal occupation leaders,” Hamas said in a statement.

Fatah leaders also welcomed the decision.

Upon the first announcement that ICC prosecutor Karim Khan was seeking arrest warrants for Israeli ministers as well as Hamas’s own terrorist leaders, Hamas responded, “Any decision that contributes to supporting the rights of the Palestinian people and defends their freedom is an appropriate decision, consistent with human values, human rights charters, protection of civilians under occupation and the prosecution of war criminals.”

The terror group added, “The Palestinian people await the day that the occupation and its leaders are brought to trial for their crimes against it. We call to use all means to stop Zionist terror and crimes against the Palestinian people.”

They continued that Israel “has often found in international silence a justification for continuing its criminal practices” and expressed confidence that any court with integrity “will be on the side of the Palestinian people.”

Netanyahu called the decision to issue the arrest warrants a “modern-day Dreyfus trial.”

“Israel utterly rejects the false and absurd charges of the International Criminal Court [ICC], a biased and discriminatory political body,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement. “No war is more just than the war Israel has been waging in Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023, when the Hamas terrorist organization launched a murderous assault and perpetrated the largest massacre against the Jewish people since the Holocaust.”