Israeli minister Smotrich says ICC prosecutor requested secret arrest warrant against him

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said he had been told that the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) has requested a “secret” arrest warrant against him. He did not say which accusations he faced. He described the move as “a declaration of war” and blamed the Palestinian Authority.

The ICC does not publicly disclose warrant applications. The process is confidential and must be approved by ICC judges. The court declined to comment, although it had recently denied that warrants had been issued for five Israeli officials.

Smotrich has wide authority over Israeli policy in the occupied West Bank. In response to the reported request, he ordered the demolition of Khan al-Ahmar, a prominent Palestinian Bedouin village. A Palestinian Authority official denounced the order as “a dangerous escalation.” Smotrich told a news conference on Tuesday that the court was “the antisemitic court in The Hague,” and said: “As a sovereign and independent state, we will not accept hypocritical dictates from biased bodies that consistently stand against the State of Israel.” He promised to “fight back with a vengeance” and warned the Palestinian Authority, which governs parts of the West Bank not under Israeli control, that it had “started a war and it will get a war.” He said that immediately after his remarks, “we will sign an order to evacuate Khan al-Ahmar.”

The ICC’s Office of the Prosecutor said it was “unable to comment on questions related to any alleged application for a warrant of arrest,” explaining that such applications are “classified as secret or under seal, unless otherwise authorised by ICC judges.” Palestinian Authority Minister Muayyad Shaaban, head of the Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission, called the evacuation order “a dangerous escalation in the policy of forcible displacement pursued by the Israeli occupation government against the Palestinian people.” He said it was part of a long-term project east of Jerusalem through which Israel seeks to link settlements in a way that separates the northern West Bank from the south.

Israel’s Supreme Court upheld an eviction order for Khan al-Ahmar in 2018, but the order has not been enforced after warnings from the UN, the ICC and others that doing so would violate international law. Israel has built about 160 settlements housing 700,000 Jews since occupying the West Bank and East Jerusalem during the 1967 Middle East war. An estimated 3.3 million Palestinians live alongside them. The settlements are illegal under international law.

Last June, the UK and four other Western countries sanctioned Smotrich, who lives in a settlement, and another far-right Israeli minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, over what they said were “repeated incitements of violence against Palestinian communities” in the West Bank. The Israeli government called the measures “outrageous.”

On Sunday, Israel’s Haaretz newspaper, citing sources, reported that the ICC prosecutor had requested new arrest warrants for five Israeli political and military officials, including Smotrich, for alleged crimes against Palestinians. A court spokesperson later told Reuters that the court “denies the issuance of new arrest warrants in the situation in the State of Palestine.”

In November 2024, ICC judges issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant. The judges said there were “reasonable grounds” to believe the men bore criminal responsibility for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity during the war in Gaza.

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