After the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, President Joe Biden affirmed his support for the Israeli government by calling the decision "outrageous".
"The ICC prosecutor's application for arrest warrants against Israeli leaders is outrageous," Biden said in a statement on Monday afternoon. "We will always stand with Israel against threats to its security."
The ICC is charging Netanyahu and Gallant with war crimes, including the willful starvation and intentional killing of civilians and causing "great suffering" to the Palestinians who reside inside the besieged Gaza Strip.
Netanyahu's Hamas counterpart Yahya Sinwar was similarly charged with crimes for the October 7 attack on Israel.
In his statement, Biden said there was "no equivalence" between Israel and Hamas - even as tensions between the United States and Israel remain high. American officials have confirmed there is famine in Gaza, acknowledged the Israeli Defense Forces' killing of American aid workers and repeatedly warned Israel to not carry out a ground invasion of the Gazan city Rafah.
Senator Jim Risch, the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called the ICC's decision "absurd," adding that it "continues to be obsessed with targeting Israel during its time of need. There is no cause for why the court should be investigating Israel as it is not a party to the Rome Statute and Israel has a fully functional judiciary."
ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim A.A. Khan alleged that his office has detailed evidence of Israel committing war crimes, including video footage and interviews with victims.
"We submit that the crimes against humanity charged were committed as part of a widespread and systematic attack against the Palestinian civilian population pursuant to State policy," he wrote in an ICC statement. "These crimes, in our assessment, continue to this day."
Both Hamas and Israel criticized the ICC for drawing equivalences between the two. Hamas said that arresting "Palestinian resistance leaders" alongside Israeli politicians was equating "victim with the executioner." Israeli President Isaac Herzog said it was "outrageous" to "draw parallels between these atrocious terrorists and a democratically elected government."
