"A reward for terrorism"

Judges at the International Criminal Court have issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence chief, as well as a Hamas leader, Ibrahim Al-Masri, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The move comes after the ICC prosecutor Karim Khan announced on May 20, that he was seeking arrest warrants for alleged crimes connected to the Oct.7, 2023 attacks on Israel by Hamas and the Israeli military response in Gaza.

The ICC said Israel's acceptance of the court's jurisdiction was not required.

Israel has rejected the jurisdiction of the Hague-based court and denies war crimes in Gaza. Israel has said it killed Al-Masri, also known as Mohammed Deif, in airstrike but Hamas has neither confirmed nor denied this.

Israeli Prime Minister denounced the International Criminal Court's decisio.

"Israel rejects with disgust the absurd and false actions leveled against it by ICC," his office said in a statement, adding that Netanyahu won't "give in to pressure" in the defence of Israel's citizens.

"The ICC arrest warrants are a mark of shame not of Israel’s leaders but of the ICC itself, and its members," former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett wrote on X.

Israel's main opposition leader Yair Lapid called the court move "a reward for terrorism".

Benny Gantz, who joined Netanyahu's war cabinet in the wake of the Hamas attack but quit in June, slammed what he called the "moral blindness" of the ICC, calling the ruling a "shameful stain of historic proportion that will never be forgotten".