In relation to Hamas’ October 7 attacks on Israel, he said that he saw for himself “the devastating scenes of these attacks and the profound impact of the unconscionable crimes charged in the applications filed today”.

He went on: “Speaking with survivors, I heard how the love within a family, the deepest bonds between a parent and a child, were contorted to inflict unfathomable pain through calculated cruelty and extreme callousness. These acts demand accountability.”

Reaction to the ICC statement was swift from both sides.

Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders condemned the move as antisemitic, calling it a “disgrace” and an attack on the Israeli military and all of Israel. He vowed to press ahead with Israel’s war against Hamas.

Benny Gantz, a member of Israel’s war cabinet who has in recent weeks grown increasingly critical of Netanyahu’s handling of the war, described the move as “moral bankruptcy”. Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said the decision by the ICC to seek arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant was a “show of hypocrisy and Jew-hatred”.

“Arrest warrants against them are arrest warrants against us all,” he said.

US President Joe Biden said the effort to arrest Netanyahu and Gallant over the war in Gaza was outrageous, adding “whatever this prosecutor might imply, there is no equivalence – none – between Israel and Hamas”.

Sami Abu Zuhri, a senior Hamas official, said the move by the ICC equated “the victim with the executioner” and encouraged Israel to continue its “war of extermination” in Gaza.

The news from The Hague came as Israel made a new push in central Gaza on Monday, bombarding towns in the north of Gaza Strip and moving forward with a wider offensive in Rafah, despite US warnings of the risk of mass casualties in the southern city.

Gaza medics said at least 23 people had been killed in the latest fighting and residents said battles were intense in Jabaliya in the north of the Palestinian enclave.

Israeli tanks also carried out a limited incursion into areas of Wadi al-Salqa and Al-Karara near Deir al-Balah, a central Gazan city that Israeli forces have not entered during more than seven months of war, local residents said.

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Fighting raged as US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan held talks in Israel that the White House had said he would use to call for Israeli forces to go after Hamas militants in Gaza in a targeted way, not with a full-scale assault on Rafah.

But Gallant signalled there would be no let up in operations, which Israel says is intended to clear Rafah of Hamas militants and rescue hostages seized in the Hamas-led raid on Israel on October 7 that triggered the latest escalation in hostilities.

“We are committed to broadening the ground operation in Rafah to the end of dismantling Hamas and recovering the hostages,” a statement from Gallant’s office quoted him as telling Sullivan.

Western powers are concerned for the hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians sheltering in Rafah.

Israel told civilians to evacuate parts of the city on May 6 and began troop and tank incursions. The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, estimates that 810,000 people have fled since then, possibly over half Rafah’s wartime population.

At least 35,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war in Gaza, according to the enclave’s health ministry, and aid agencies have also warned of widespread hunger and dire shortages of fuel and medical supplies.

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Some 1200 people were killed and more than 250 taken hostage in the October 7 Hamas rampage, according to Israeli tallies. About 125 people are believed to remain in captivity in Gaza. Israel’s military says more than 280 soldiers have been killed in fighting since the first ground incursions in Gaza on October 20.

Talks mediated by Egypt and Qatar have failed to secure an end to the war.

Netanyahu is under growing pressure from within his own war cabinet to commit to an agreed vision for Gaza that would include stipulating who might rule the enclave after the conflict ends.

AP, Reuters, Bloomberg