The United States "fundamentally rejects" the International Criminal Court's decision to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, the White House said on Thursday.
In a landmark move, the court in the Hague announced earlier in the day it had issued arrest warrants over war crimes it accuses Netanyahu and Gallant of carrying out in Palestinian territories, including Gaza.
"We remain deeply concerned by the Prosecutor's rush to seek arrest warrants and the troubling process errors that led to this decision. The United States has been clear that the ICC does not have jurisdiction over this matter," a National Security Council spokesperson said.
The statement made no mention of an ICC arrest warrant also issued for Mohammed Deif, the military chief of the Palestinian resistance group Hamas.
Mike Waltz, the incoming national security advisor under U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's administration, defended Israel and promised a "strong response to the antisemitic bias of the ICC & U.N. come January."
"The ICC has no credibility and these allegations have been refuted by the US government," Waltz said on social media platform X.
His comments reflected a wider outrage among Republicans, with some calling for the U.S. Senate to sanction the ICC, which counts 124 national members who are in theory obliged to arrest individuals subject to warrants.
Neither the United States nor Israel is a member of the ICC and both have rejected its jurisdiction.
Israel has been relentlessly bombing Gaza since Oct. 7 last year after Hamas' cross-border attack. It has killed at least 44,056 people in more than 13 months of war. The United Nations considers the figures reliable.
The Hague-based court said Thursday that the warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant were issued "for crimes against humanity and war crimes committed from at least 8 October 2023 until at least 20 May 2024."
It said it "found reasonable grounds" to believe that the two bear criminal responsibility for "the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts."
It also believes that both "bear criminal responsibility as civilian superiors for the war crime of intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population."
A warrant was also issued for Deif, whom Israel claimed was killed in an air strike in Gaza in July, but Hamas has not confirmed his death.
Human rights groups rejoiced and many countries hailed the ICC decision, while some disagreed, including Argentina.
President Javier Milei said Argentina "declares its deep disagreement" with the decision, which it says "ignores" Israel's right to defend itself.
Milei has presented himself as a close ally of Israel, visiting the country in February and announcing plans to move the Argentinian embassy to Jerusalem.
The president grew up Catholic but has displayed an enthusiasm for orthodox Jewish thought, regularly consulting with a rabbi and describing himself last year as a "Torah scholar."
Argentina has the largest Jewish community in Latin America.
