Iran demands death penalty for Israeli leaders

An ICC arrest warrant for PM Benjamin Netanyahu is not enough, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has said

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has called for the death sentence to be issued against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other top officials of the Jewish state, Iranian news agencies have reported.

The statement follows last week’s decision by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague to issue arrest warrants for Netanyahu, former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas leader Mohammed Deif.

Addressing the Basij paramilitary force, a division within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, on Monday in Tehran, Khamenei argued that arrest warrants are not enough for the “war crimes” that “the Zionist regime” has committed in Gaza and Lebanon.

”They issued an arrest warrant, that’s not enough. Netanyahu’s death sentence must be issued. Death sentence must be issued for these criminal leaders,” Khamenei said, as quoted by Tasnim news agency.

In their decision on Thursday, the ICC judges said there were reasonable grounds to believe Netanyahu and Gallant were criminally responsible for acts including murder, persecution and starvation used as a weapon of war “against the civilian population of Gaza.”

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“Israel rejects with disgust the absurd and false actions leveled against it by ICC,” Netanyahu said in response.

The warrant for Deif includes charges of mass killings during the October 7 attacks on Israel that triggered the war in Gaza. Israel claimed that it killed Deif in an airstrike in July.

Hostilities between Israel and Hamas in the Palestinian enclave flared up when the militant group attacked southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing around 1,100 people and taking more than 200 others hostage. The massive military retaliation by Israel has claimed more than 44,000 lives in the enclave, according to Palestinian health officials.

Israel also ramped up its campaign against Lebanese-based Shiite militant group Hezbollah in September. The overall death toll from Israeli strikes in Lebanon stands at nearly 3,700, the Lebanese Health Ministry said on Saturday.

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Israel and Iran, which supports Hezbollah, have also exchanged airstrikes in recent months following the killings of several Hezbollah and Iranian commanders widely blamed on Israel.