Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has denied allegations that he was starving Palestinians in Gaza as a method of war.
ICC prosecutor Karim Khan announced Monday that he had requested arrest warrants for three Hamas leaders and two Israeli politicians – Netanyahu and Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant – on allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity over the October 7 attacks in Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza.
Khan said the accusations against Netanyahu and Gallant include “causing extermination, causing starvation as a method of war, including the denial of humanitarian relief supplies, deliberately targeting civilians in conflict.”
Responding, Netanyahu said an arrest warrant application currently under review in the International Criminal Court (ICC) is based on a “pack of lies.”
Speaking to CNN’s Jake Tapper, Netanyahu called Khan a “rogue prosecutor that has put false charges and created false symmetries that are both dangerous and false” and insisted that Israel has been allowing food and medical aid to enter Gaza, where aid groups say that the blockaded Palestinian enclave is currently at risk of famine.
Israel has allowed 20,000 trucks of aid into Gaza, Netanyahu said, which is a fraction of what would have entered in the same period under normal times.
Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza, following Hamas’ October 7 terror attacks, has reached its seventh month and left more than 34,000 people dead.
Last week, Israel’s defense chief Gallant called on Netanyahu to publicly rule out Israeli governance over the Gaza Strip and to lay out his post-war plans for civilian rule in Gaza, warning that he opposes Israeli rule in the Palestinian enclave.
When Netanyahu was asked by Tapper if he would rule out the Israeli occupation of Gaza, the Israeli politician said that “resettling” the Palestinian territory was out of the question.
“You mean resettling Gaza? Yeah. It was never in the cards, and I said so openly [and] some of my constituents are not happy about it, but that’s my position.”
The prime minister also reaffirmed his commitment to eradicating Hamas, which governs Gaza, before considering demilitarizing the strip.
“Military action that we take against Hamas is in fact the way to get these hostages because without military pressure, basically, without, you know, squeezing them, Hamas is not going to give up anything,” he told Tapper.
Netanyahu is deeply unpopular in Israel, where he is also facing an ongoing corruption trial.
In the interview, Netanyahu rejected accusations that he avoids Israeli media in favor of international press, saying he has done up to 20 press conferences with Israeli journalists.
“That’s simply not true,” he said. “I speak to them and I speak to you and I welcome the opportunity to tell the truth and dispel the lies in both in both mediums.”
The ICC’s application for warrants over the war in Gaza marked the first time the international court has targeted the top leader of a close ally of the United States.