By Abiola Olawale
President Joe Biden of the United States has expressed his strong condemnation regarding the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) decision to issue arrest warrants against Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence minister Yoav Gallant.
Biden, in a press statement, said the order by ICC could hurt the international community.
Biden also reinstated that the order of the ICC has no equivalence to the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas.
The statement reads in part: “The ICC issuance of arrest warrants against Israeli leaders is outrageous.
“Let me be clear once again: whatever the ICC might imply, there is no equivalence — none — between Israel and Hamas.”
He said the US “will always stand with Israel against threats to its security.”
The New Diplomat reports that in a landmark move, the ICC announced that it had issued arrest warrants against Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant for war crimes in occupied Palestinian territories, including Gaza.
The court said it “found reasonable grounds” to believe that Netanyahu and Gallant “bear criminal responsibility” for “the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution and other inhumane acts.”
The warrants come amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas.
According to reports, the war has reportedly led to the death of about 44,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children, and injured over 103,000 others.
