President Joe Biden denounced as "outrageous" the International Criminal Court chief prosecutor's announcement Monday that he is seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders to charge them with war crimes and crimes against humanity.
"Let me be clear: whatever this prosecutor might imply, there is no equivalence — none — between Israel and Hamas,” Biden said in a statement.
At a Rose Garden appearance celebrating Jewish American Heritage Month later in the day, Biden said that “Israel wants to do all it can to ensure civilian protection,” and that “what’s happening is not genocide. We reject that.”
“Let me be clear: we reject the ICC’s application for arrest warrants against Israeli leaders,” Biden said.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken echoed Biden's forceful response to the announcement that the prosecutor intends to hold Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders, along with Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and other Hamas leaders, responsible for Hamas' attack on Israel on Oct. 7 and the subsequent invasion of Gaza by Israeli forces.
"It is shameful," Blinken said. "Hamas is a brutal terrorist organization that carried out the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, and it still holding dozens of people hostage, including Americans."
ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim A.A. Khan said in a statement that he was “filing applications for the warrants of arrests" for Netanyahu, Sinwar and other senior Israeli and Hamas figures who have played key roles in the ongoing war in Gaza.
A panel of three judges will now decide whether to issue the arrest warrants and allow a case to proceed. The judges typically take two months to make such decisions.
While it's unlikely the targeted Israeli and Hamas leaders will face prosecution, the arrest warrants could make it difficult for them to travel abroad, and will be embarrassing to the Israeli government, experts said.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant also could face an arrest warrant, as pressure continues on Israel at home and abroad to halt its military offensive in Gaza and secure a cease-fire and hostage release deal with Hamas.
Khan said both Netanyahu and Gallant bear criminal responsibility for a list of "war crimes," including starving civilians, willfully "causing great suffering, or serious injury," willful killing and intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population.
"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," Khan wrote in the ICC statement, adding that his office has extensive evidence, including video and interviews with survivors. "These crimes, in our assessment, continue to this day."
Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri, commander in chief of the military wing of Hamas, and Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas' political bureau, also face possible ICC arrest warrants for their parts in the Oct. 7 attacks.
"We submit that the crimes against humanity charged were part of a widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population of Israel by Hamas and other armed groups pursuant to organizational policies," Khan wrote. "Some of these crimes, in our assessment, continue to this day."
Israel’s leadership had been working through diplomatic channels to prevent the ICC from issuing warrants, an Israeli official told NBC News last month.
Netanyahu blasted the announcement as "absurd."
"With what audacity do you dare compare the monsters of Hamas to the soldiers of the IDF, the most moral army in the world?" Netanyahu said in a statement. "With what audacity do you compare between the Hamas that murdered, burned, butchered, raped, and kidnapped our brothers and sisters, and the IDF soldiers who are fighting a just war that is unparalleled in morality that is unmatched."
There was no immediate comment from Gallant. But Israeli war Cabinet member Benny Gantz, a political rival of Netanyahu who recently threatened to resign from the government if it didn’t adopt a new plan for the war in Gaza, condemned the announcement.
