News from Israel and Gaza: EU foreign policy chief demands compliance with arrest warrants – USA criticizes decision

Josep Borrell, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, calls for compliance with the arrest warrants against Benjamin Netanyahu and Joav Gallant: “The court’s decision must be respected and implemented,” he said loud New York Times to reporters in Jordan: “This decision is binding for all contracting parties to the court, which also includes all members of the European Union.” In concrete terms, this would mean that all EU states – including Germany – would have to arrest the Israeli head of state if Netanyahu travels to their country.

The human rights organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) meanwhile praises the arrest warrants against Israeli politicians and Hamas leader Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri a statement. HRW’s deputy director of international justice said: “The ICC arrest warrants against senior Israeli leaders and a Hamas official belie the impression that certain individuals are beyond the reach of the law.”

The US government, which does not recognize the criminal court as a whole, criticizes the decision. The government is fundamentally against arrest warrants against Israeli representatives, says a spokesman for the National Security Council in the White House. The USA would now discuss the next steps with its partners.

The Central Council of Jews in Germany also sharply criticized: “This arrest warrant against a prime minister of a democratic state and his former defense minister is an absurdity,” explained Central Council President Josef Schuster. “Israel defends itself against Islamist terror in Gaza and Lebanon after the Hamas massacre on October 7, 2023. The semantic dualism alone of putting Israel on the same level as Hamas borders on audacity and a completely misunderstood understanding of the office of an international criminal court as a result of anti-Israel propaganda.” The federal government must not accept this perpetrator-victim reversal.

SZ parliamentary correspondent Paul-Anton Krüger explained in May why an arrest warrant against Netanyahu plunges the federal government into a dilemma: