Israeli minister Smotrich says ICC prosecutor seeking warrant for his arrest

Far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich says he has been told the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) has requested a "secret" arrest warrant for him.

He did not say which accusations he faced. But he described the move as "a declaration of war" and blamed the Palestinian Authority.

The process of seeking warrants is confidential and must be approved by ICC judges. The court declined to comment, though it recently denied that warrants had been issued for five Israeli officials.

Smotrich - who has wide authority over Israeli policies in the occupied West Bank - responded by ordering the demolition of Khan al-Ahmar, a prominent Palestinian Bedouin village.

A Palestinian Authority official denounced the order as "a dangerous escalation".

In 2018, Israel's Supreme Court upheld an eviction order for Khan al-Ahmar, but it has not been enforced after warnings from the UN, the ICC and others that this would violate international law.

"Last night, it was reported to me that a request for a secret international arrest warrant was filed against me by the criminal prosecutor of the antisemitic court in The Hague," Smotrich told a news conference on Tuesday.

"As a sovereign and independent state, we will not accept hypocritical dictates from biased bodies that consistently stand against the State of Israel," he added.

Smotrich promised to "fight back with a vengeance" and warned the Palestinian Authority, which governs parts of the West Bank not under Israeli control, that it had "started a war and it will get a war".

"Immediately upon the conclusion of my remarks here, we will sign an order to evacuate Khan al-Ahmar," he said.

The ICC's Office of the Prosecutor said it was "unable to comment on questions related to any alleged application for a warrant of arrest", explaining such applications were "classified as secret or under seal, unless otherwise authorised by ICC judges".

Palestinian Authority Minister Muayyad Shaaban, the head of the Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission, meanwhile said the evacuation order for Khan al-Ahmar constituted "a dangerous escalation in the policy of forcible displacement pursued by the Israeli occupation government against the Palestinian people".

He warned it came within the framework of a long-term project east of Jerusalem "through which Israel seeks to establish full territorial contiguity between settlements in a way that separates the northern West Bank from its southern part, effectively destroying any possibility of a geographically contiguous and viable Palestinian state".

Israel has built about 160 settlements housing 700,000 Jews since it occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem - land Palestinians want, along with Gaza, for a hoped-for future state - during the 1967 Middle East war. An estimated 3.3 million Palestinians live alongside them. The settlements are illegal under international law.

Last June, the UK and four other Western countries sanctioned Smotrich, who lives in a settlement, and another far-right Israeli minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, over what they said were "repeated incitements of violence against Palestinian communities" in the West Bank. The Israeli government said the measures were "outrageous".

On Sunday, Israel's Haaretz newspaper cited sources saying the ICC prosecutor had requested new arrest warrants for five Israeli political and military officials, including Smotrich, for alleged crimes against Palestinians.

But a spokesperson for the court at the time told the Reuters news agency it "denies the issuance of new arrest warrants in the situation in the State of Palestine".

In November 2024, ICC judges issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, saying there were "reasonable grounds" to believe the men bore criminal responsibility for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity during the war in Gaza.

The Israeli government and both men rejected the accusations.

The ICC prosecutor also applied in May 2024 for arrest warrants for three leaders of the Palestinian armed group Hamas - Gaza leader Yahya Sinwar, military chief Mohammed Deif, and political leader Ismail Haniyeh - on the same charges.

Sinwar and Haniyeh were killed by Israeli forces before any warrants were issued, while a warrant for Deif was cancelled in February 2025 after Hamas confirmed he was also dead.

The ICC has the authority to prosecute those accused of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes on the territory of states party to the Rome Statute, its founding treaty.

Israel is not an ICC member state and rejects its jurisdiction. However, the court ruled in 2021 that it had jurisdiction over the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza because the UN's secretary general had accepted the Palestinians were a member.