The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif, for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes. The warrants were issued today, November 21.

According to NBC News, the ICC accused Netanyahu and Gallant of a string of human rights abuses in the Gaza Strip, where local health officials said the death toll from the Israeli military’s yearlong assault on the Palestinian enclave had now passed 44,000.

Israel responded furiously to the warrants, with Netanyahu’s office branding the decision “antisemitic,” rejecting the charges as “absurd and false” and condemning the ICC as a “biased and discriminatory political body.”

Hamas welcomed the warrants as an “important step towards justice” but senior political official Basem Naim said the court’s decision “remains limited and symbolic if it is not supported by all means by all countries around the world to implement it.”

Both Israel and the United States do not recognize the jurisdiction of the ICC, which has no police to enforce its warrants. But the warrants do put the Israeli officials at risk of arrest in other countries, including much of Europe.

In its announcement Thursday, the ICC rejected challenges from Israel to its jurisdiction. It said the warrants issued for Netanyahu and Gallant were related to “crimes against humanity and war crimes committed from at least October 8, 2023, until at least May 20 2024,” including “the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts.”