The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued a warrant for the arrest of Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
The country’s former defence minister Yoav Gallant and the Hamas military leader Mohammed Deif have also been issued warrants.
All three have received the charges for alleged war crimes relating to ongoing war in Gaza.
This marks the first time that any leaders of a democratic and Western-aligned state have been charged by the ICC.
In their official statement regarding Gallant and Netanyahu the ICC wrote that the judges “found that there are reasonable grounds to believe that each has committed the war crime of using starvation as a method of warfare and crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts”.
They also wrote that they had found reasonable grounds to believe Deif was also responsible for crimes against humanity and war crimes.
However, Israel has previously claimed to have killed Deif in an airstrike back in July, and the pre-trial chamber said it would “continue to gather information” to confirm this.
The court was established 22 years ago when 124 countries signed the Rome statute and Netanyahu and Gallant now risk arrest if they travel to any of those countries.