"The real war criminals are not in Israel," Netanyahu tells UN General Assembly

 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday decried the desire by the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to seek arrest warrants against him and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, alongside several Hamas leaders.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the real war criminals are not in Israel,” he told the UN General Assembly.

“They’re in Iran. They’re in Gaza, in Syria, in Lebanon, in Yemen. Those of you who stand with these criminals, those of you who stand with evil against good, with the curse against the blessing, those of you who do so should be ashamed of yourselves.”

The International Criminal Court is seeking arrest warrants for Hamas leader in Gaza Yahya Sinwar and Netanyahu on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity over the October 7 attacks on Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza.

“Given the antisemitism at the UN, it should surprise no one that the prosecutor at the ICC, one of the UN’s affiliate organs, is considering issuing arrest warrants against me and Israel’s defense minister – the democratically elected leaders of the democratic state of Israel,” Netanyahu said.

“Nobody is above the law,” ICC prosecutor Karim Khan told CNN this spring.

But “the ICC prosecutors rushed to judgement,” Netanyahu said. “His refusal to treat Israel with its independent courts, the way other democracies are treated, is hard to explain by anything other than pure antisemitism,” he added.