Israel reacted with fury on Monday to the request by the International Criminal Court prosecutor for arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his defence minister over alleged war crimes in Gaza,
Reuters reports.
The prosecutor's office said it was also seeking arrest warrants against three Hamas leaders, including Yahya Sinwar, the Palestinian Islamist movement's chief in Gaza and one of the architects of the Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
The announcement drew a shocked defence from Israelis outraged at the parallel drawn between the prime minister and the Hamas leadership. Even Netanyahu's political enemies rallied around him.
Opposition leader Yair Lapid described the decision as a "disaster". Benny Gantz, a centrist former army general who joined Netanyahu's wartime unity government last year but who is the leading candidate to take over as prime minister, called it a "crime of historic proportions".
In liberal Tel Aviv, which saw some of the biggest street protests in Israel's history against Netanyahu's plans to curb the powers of the judiciary last year, people expressed outrage.
"Sinwar is a terrorist leader. Putting them all three together is absolutely absurd, there's no common thread between them," said Barak Rabinowitz, a 45-year-old venture capital executive.
Netanyahu, Israel's longest serving prime minister, has seen his popularity dive since the start of the war in Gaza, with many Israelis blaming him for the security failures that allowed the Hamas rampage to occur, and accusing him of failing to do enough to bring home around 130 Israeli hostages held by Hamas.
