Far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Tuesday that the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor is seeking a warrant for his arrest in what he called “a declaration of war.”
In a speech delivered from his office in Jerusalem, Smotrich did not say why the court is seeking a warrant, but he suggested it’s because of the massive expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank that he has pushed.
In April, Israel secretly approved more than 30 new settler outposts and farms as part of a broader push to entrench Israel’s grip on the territory and eliminate the possibility of a Palestinian state.
In a statement to CNN, the ICC said it cannot comment and that applications for arrest warrants are classified or under seal. The process begins with a prosecutor requesting an arrest warrant, a step that can take place confidentially before judges decide whether to issue it.
In his address, Smotrich called the expansion of settlements a “revolution” in what he referred to as Judea and Samaria, using the biblical term for the West Bank. He said that during the current government’s tenure, Israel had approved more than 100 new settlements. He has repeatedly celebrated the approval of new settlements as a step toward imposing Israeli sovereignty in the West Bank and openly said his goal is to prevent any possibility of a Palestinian state.
“We are planning, building, paving, regulating, and making the pioneering settlement enterprise irreversible,” Smotrich boasted. He said that Israel would “immediately” evacuate the Bedouin community of Khan al-Ahmar, located east of Jerusalem, in response to the ICC’s prosecutor’s request for a warrant. The small community has long been a target of Israel’s right-wing. Without offering any proof, Smotrich said that “according to all indications” the Palestinian Authority, which governs parts of the West Bank, is to be blamed for the ICC’s moves. CNN has reached out to the Palestinian Authority for comment.
An Israeli official told CNN that Israel believes the ICC may also be seeking arrest warrants for Defense Minister Israel Katz and far-right Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gvir. In a statement, Ben Gvir said he is “neither afraid nor deterred.”
Israel captured the West Bank from Jordan in the 1967 war and subsequently began establishing Jewish settlements there, which are considered illegal under international law, by the United Nations and by much of the international community. The UN also regards the West Bank and East Jerusalem as occupied territory, which the Palestinians seek for a future state.
In November 2024, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Netanyahu called the arrest warrants “absurd and antisemitic.”
At the time, the court also issued an arrest warrant for Hamas’ military leader, Mohamed Deif, who had been killed in an airstrike several months earlier.
