News Mania Desk / Piyal Chatterjee / 25th November 2024
Iran’s supreme commander, who supports Hamas and Hezbollah fighters who are battling Israel in Gaza and Lebanon, stated on Monday that Israeli leaders should be given death sentences rather than arrest warrants.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was speaking in response to the International Criminal Court’s Thursday decision to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Ibrahim Al-Masri, a Hamas leader, and his former defense chief.
“They issued an arrest warrant, that’s not enough… Death sentence must be issued for these criminal leaders”, Khamenei said, referring to the Israeli leaders.
In their decision, the ICC judges said there were reasonable grounds to believe Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant were criminally responsible for acts including murder, persecution and starvation as a weapon of war as part of a “widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population of Gaza”.
Israel was outraged by the ruling, calling it foolish and disgraceful. Residents of Gaza said they hoped it would help put an end to the violence and bring war criminals to justice. Israel has denied war crimes in Gaza and rejected the Hague-based court’s jurisdiction. Ibrahim Al-Masri, the chairman of Hamas, is wanted on allegations of mass murders that occurred on October 7, 2023, attacks on Israel that led to the war on the long-blockaded Palestinian enclave, rape, and hostage-taking.
