Israel's Bezalel Smotrich says ICC arrest warrant request is 'declaration of war'

“Israel's Bezalel Smotrich says ICC arrest warrant request is 'declaration of war' Israel’s finance minister Bezalel Smotrich on Tuesday said the arrest warrant application for him at the International Criminal Court amounts to a “declaration of war” and threatened immediate retaliation against Palestinians. “Last night I was informed that a request for a secret international arrest warrant had been filed against me by the criminal prosecutor of the Anti-Semitic Tribunal in The Hague,” the far-right minister said in a speech reacting to a report by Middle East Eye a day earlier. MEE on Monday reported that the office of the prosecutor of the ICC last month filed a secret arrest warrant application for Smotrich over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. MEE understands that an evidence review took place on Wednesday last week to examine the possibility of two more warrant applications, including one for National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, but they have yet to be filed. The charges against Smotrich include forced displacement as a crime against humanity and war crime, the transfer of Israel’s own population as a war crime, and persecution and apartheid as crimes against humanity. If approved by the ICC’s pre-trial chamber, the warrant for Smotrich would be the first ever issued by an international court for the crime of apartheid. The application for Smotrich had been ready for about a year but was only submitted by the office of the prosecutor on 2 April. Read more: Israel's Bezalel Smotrich says ICC arrest warrant request is 'declaration of war' Israel's far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich is surrounded by Israeli settlers in Sa-Nur, south of Jenin, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on 19 April 2026 (AFP)

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