Israel's Bezalel Smotrich says ICC arrest warrant request is 'declaration of war'
Israel’s finance minister Bezalel Smotrich on Tuesday said the arrest warrant application for him at the International Criminal Court amounts to a “declaration of war” and threatened immediate retaliation against Palestinians.
“Last night I was informed that a request for a secret international arrest warrant had been filed against me by the criminal prosecutor of the Anti-Semitic Tribunal in The Hague,” the far-right minister said in a speech reacting to a report by Middle East Eye a day earlier.
MEE on Monday reported that the office of the prosecutor of the ICC last month filed a secret arrest warrant application for Smotrich over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
MEE understands that an evidence review took place on Wednesday last week to examine the possibility of two more warrant applications, including one for National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, but they have yet to be filed.
The charges against Smotrich include forced displacement as a crime against humanity and war crime, the transfer of Israel’s own population as a war crime, and persecution and apartheid as crimes against humanity.
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If approved by the ICC’s pre-trial chamber, the warrant for Smotrich would be the first ever issued by an international court for the crime of apartheid.
The application for Smotrich had been ready for about a year but was only submitted by the office of the prosecutor on 2 April.
If judges issue his arrest warrant, Smotrich will become the third Israeli official wanted by the court, after arrest warrants were issued in November 2024 for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then defence minister Yoav Gallant.
“Issuing arrest warrants against the prime minister is a declaration of war. Issuing arrest warrants against the minister of defence and the minister of finance is a declaration of war," said Smotrich.
"And in the face of a declaration of war, we will fight back with a vengeance,” he added, accusing the Palestinian Authority of starting a war by engaging with the ICC to provide evidence.
Smotrich said he is “very proud” of his settlement expansion policies, and that he would use his powers to sign an immediate order to expel residents of the Palestinian village of Khan al-Ahmar in the occupied West Bank.
“From today, any economic or otherwise, anything that I can harm within the framework of my powers … will be attacked. Not talk and gimmicks - actions.”
It is uncertain how long judges will take to rule on the Smotrich application.
ICC pre-trial judges typically take several months to rule on warrant applications, though timelines have ranged from roughly one month in the cases of Russian President Vladimir Putin and former Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte to six months for the Netanyahu and Gallant warrants.
So far, the arrest warrant application for Smotrich has not been ratified by the judges and a decision could still be months away.
Sanctioned by western states
Since June last year, Smotrich and Ben Gvir have been the target of a coordinated international sanctions campaign over their policies and statements advocating the extermination and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.
Both ministers live in West Bank settlements considered illegal under international law, and both have championed annexation of the territory and the return of Israeli settlers to Gaza.
In June, the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Norway jointly imposed sanctions on the pair, freezing any assets they held in those countries and barring them from entering.
Other western states have since followed suit. In July, Slovenia became the first EU member to declare both ministers persona non grata, and the Netherlands, Belgium and Spain have imposed their own travel restrictions, with the Dutch ban extending across the 29-country Schengen Area.
A proposal to sanction Ben Gvir and Smotrich at EU level has been on the table for nearly two years however.
Then-foreign policy chief Josep Borrell first floated it in August 2024, calling the ministers' statements an "incitement to war crimes", but the proposal was rejected by member states for lack of the required unanimity.
His successor Kaja Kallas revived the idea, and in September, the European Commission formally proposed a package combining a partial suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement with targeted sanctions on Hamas leaders, violent settlers and the two "extremist ministers”.
On 11 May, the EU’s foreign affairs council agreed to sanction settler organisations and Hamas figures, but not the two cabinet ministers driving the settler policies.
Ben Gvir and Smotrich were stripped from the list after Germany, Italy, Austria, Czech Republic and Hungary made clear they would not support their inclusion.
The US has opposed the sanctions throughout, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio urging allies to reverse them and the administration imposing its own sanctions on ICC officials in an effort to halt the court's Israel-related investigations.
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