Unique: ICC Prosecutor’s Place of business Requests Arrest Warrant for Israel’s Smotrich
The Global Felony Court docket prosecutor’s workplace ultimate month submitted a request for a secret arrest warrant for Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich for alleged conflict crimes and crimes in opposition to humanity dedicated in opposition to Palestinians within the occupied West Financial institution, resources briefed at the topic instructed Center East Eye.
Israeli media studies over the weekend claiming that the prosecutor’s workplace had submitted 5 programs for Israeli officers are misguided, MEE understands.
An explanation evaluate used to be hung on Wednesday ultimate week to inspect the opportunity of two extra warrant programs, together with one for Nationwide Safety Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, however they’ve now not but been filed.
MEE understands that the costs in opposition to Smotrich come with pressured displacement as against the law in opposition to humanity and a conflict crime, the switch of Israel’s personal inhabitants as a conflict crime, and persecution and apartheid as crimes in opposition to humanity.
If authorized through the ICC’s pretrial chamber, the warrant in opposition to Smotrich will be the first issued through a global court docket for the crime of apartheid.
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The appliance used to be submitted on April 2. Palestinian diplomats and civil society have been urging the prosecution to do so in opposition to Smotrich and Ben Gvir for years.
In a letter to ICC deputy prosecutors in March, noticed through MEE, the Palestinian venture in The Hague defined additional proof of alleged conflict crimes and crimes in opposition to humanity dedicated through Israeli settlers and occupying forces.
The letter additionally famous that Israel has now not prosecuted the alleged crimes.
“The urgency of taking action now cannot in any way be overstated, as the erasure and destruction of the Palestinian people, manifested by an illegal occupier, materializes day by day,” the letter stated.
When requested for remark through MEE, a spokesperson for the Public Prosecutor’s Place of business (OTP) didn’t deny that an utility have been made for Smotrich.
‘The ICC Prosecutor’s Place of business can not touch upon issues associated with any alleged arrest warrant request’
– Spokesperson for the ICC prosecutor
The spokesperson cited the court docket’s laws, amended in November, which stipulate that requests for arrest warrants should be categorized as secret or sealed, except differently licensed through ICC judges.
“For this reason, the ICC Prosecutor’s Office cannot comment on matters related to any alleged arrest warrant request,” the spokesperson stated.
ICC spokesperson Oriane Maillet instructed Reuters on Sunday that the court docket “denies the issuance of new arrest warrants in the situation in the State of Palestine.”
When addressing whether or not an order has been issued, the denial seems to contradict the amended ICC rules.
MEE understands that the Prosecutor’s Place of business’s newest conversation technique is to neither deny nor verify studies associated with arrest warrants.
If the judges factor his arrest warrant, Smotrich will develop into the 3rd Israeli respectable sought through the court docket, after arrest warrants had been issued in November 2024 for Israeli Top Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then-Protection Minister Yoav Gallant.
Sanctions at the ICC
The arrest warrants in opposition to Netanyahu and Gallant have unleashed a fierce marketing campaign of threats and sanctions in opposition to the court docket through Israel and the USA, essentially aimed toward pressuring it to drop the conflict crimes investigation.
Since February 2025, the Trump management has imposed monetary and visa sanctions at the court docket’s leader prosecutor, Khan, his two deputy prosecutors, 8 judges, the UN particular rapporteur on Palestine and 3 Palestinian NGOs in reference to the conflict crimes investigation.
The 3 investigating judges who authorized the arrest warrants in opposition to Netanyahu and Gallant had been sanctioned through the USA.
They’re Reine Alapini-Gansou (Benin), Beti Hohler (Slovenia) and Nicolas Guillou (France). They have got persisted to hold out their paintings, together with inspecting Smotrich’s utility, in spite of the affect of sanctions on their day-to-day lives.
The USA has additionally threatened sanctions in opposition to the court docket itself, which ICC officers imagine a “doomsday scenario.”
ICC judges are lately making an allowance for an Israeli problem to its jurisdiction over the location in Palestine, and a separate Israeli grievance, filed on November 17, searching for to disqualify the prosecutor for alleged loss of impartiality.
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It’s unknown how lengthy it is going to take for the judges to rule on Smotrich’s request.
ICC investigative judges in most cases take a number of months to rule on arrest warrant requests, even if timelines range from a few month within the circumstances of Russian President Vladimir Putin and previous Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte to 6 months for the arrest warrants of Netanyahu and Gallant.
To this point, the request for an arrest warrant in opposition to Smotrich has now not been ratified through the judges and there are nonetheless months earlier than a choice is made.
On the ICC, the quest and issuance of arrest warrants are two distinct levels treated through two separate our bodies.
The Prosecutor’s Place of business, lately led through two deputy prosecutors, conducts the investigation, together with collecting proof and development the case.
When he believes the edge has been met, he recordsdata an utility inquiring for a warrant, environment out the alleged crimes and proof linking the suspect to them.
The appliance is then passed over to the pre-trial chamber, a three-judge panel, which opinions the prosecution’s subject material and comes to a decision whether or not there are “reasonable grounds to believe” the individual has dedicated against the law inside the court docket’s jurisdiction.
The pretrial chamber might factor an injunction on some or all the fees, or deny the appliance.
Ultimate yr, MEE reported that ICC leader prosecutor Karim Khan had ready injunction programs in opposition to Ben Gvir and Smotrich earlier than taking his go away in Might.
The warrant requests had been not on time through deputy prosecutors, who’re working Khan’s workplace in his absence, partially on account of the specter of U.S. sanctions. Days after the MEE document, the Trump management sanctioned the 2 deputy prosecutors.
Sanctions on Smotrich and Ben Gvir
Since June ultimate yr, Smotrich and Ben Gvir had been the topic of a coordinated world marketing campaign of sanctions for his or her insurance policies and statements advocating the extermination and ethnic cleaning of Palestinians.
Each ministers reside in West Financial institution settlements regarded as unlawful below world regulation, and each have advocated the annexation of the territory and the go back of Israeli settlers to Gaza.
In June 2025, the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Norway collectively imposed sanctions on each, freezing all property they’d in the ones nations and banning them from getting into.
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David Lammy, then the United Kingdom overseas secretary, stated the ministers had “incited extremist violence and serious abuses of Palestinian human rights”.
Underneath UK measures, it’s now a crime to make budget to be had to both of them, and each are prohibited from working or selling a British corporate.
Different Western states have since adopted go well with. In July 2025, Slovenia turned into the primary EU member to claim each ministers character non grata, and the Netherlands, Belgium and Spain imposed their very own commute restrictions, with the Dutch ban extending to all of the 29-nation Schengen House.
On the other hand, an offer to sanction Ben Gvir and Smotrich at EU stage has been at the desk for nearly two years.
The then overseas coverage leader, Josep Borrell, first introduced it in August 2024, calling the ministers’ statements “incitement to war crimes”, however the proposal used to be rejected through member states for loss of the specified unanimity.
His successor Kaja Kallas revived the speculation and in September 2025 the Eu Fee officially proposed a bundle combining a partial suspension of the EU-Israel Affiliation Settlement with centered sanctions on Hamas leaders, violent settlers and the 2 “extremist ministers”.
On Might 11, the EU overseas affairs council agreed to sanction settler organizations and Hamas figures, however now not the 2 cupboard ministers pushing settler insurance policies.
Ben Gvir and Smotrich had been got rid of from the record after Germany, Italy, Austria, the Czech Republic and Hungary made it transparent they wouldn’t enhance their inclusion.
The USA has antagonistic the sanctions always; Secretary of State Marco Rubio prompt his allies to opposite them and the management imposed its personal sanctions on ICC officers with the intention to forestall the court docket’s investigations associated with Israel.
