Israelis unite behind their prime minister as Netanyahu faces an international arrest warrant

By Ivana Kottasová, CNN

(CNN) — A decision by the International Criminal Court to issue arrest warrants for Israeli officials was met with anger and annoyance at Jerusalem’s bustling Mahane Yehuda Market. But the most palpable sentiment was one of unity.

“I think it’s terrible. What about Putin? What about the real evil people?” Sarita Katzin Sarfati said about the court’s decision to call for the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes committed in Gaza after the October 7 attack on Israel last year.

“Netanyahu is thinking about his people… and I think that all the world should support us and Bibi is our prime minister, and they should support Bibi as well,” Sarita told CNN, using the Israeli nickname for Netanyahu.

As shoppers rushed through the narrow alleyways of the market, Netanel Yehuda told CNN he too was outraged.

“I’m against it. We’re a nation, we are independent, and we can take our own decision here. Nobody else can tell us to put someone in jail or anything else,” he said.

That sentiment is shared by many in Israel, according to experts.

Gil Siegal, a legal scholar at the Ono Academic College in Israel, said The Hague-based court’s decision has united Israelis, many of whom believe the ICC and other international organizations, including the United Nations, are biased against their country.

“Israelis come together when under pressure,” he told CNN. “We can disagree because we think Netanyahu should do A over B, fine, but when the outer world is coming to get us, so to speak… this external pressure is a uniting force, not a breaking force,” he said.

Many Israelis still support the war in Gaza, he said, seeing it as a just fight and the only means to keep their country safe. And while many oppose Netanyahu and his government – mass protests calling for his resignation are now happening weekly – most feel he has been targeted unfairly by the ICC and see the move as an attack on Israel rather than just the prime minister.

The limited opposition to the war is motivated by the rising death toll of Israeli soldiers in Gaza and the hope that a ceasefire would secure the release of the 101 hostages still held there, with the suffering of Palestinians largely absent from the anti-war discourse.

This is partly because the shock of the brutal October 7 terror attack, during which Hamas-led militants killed more than 1,200 people, is still raw in the country. Many Israelis know someone who was directly impacted by the attack and most have family members or friends who are currently fighting in Gaza or are serving in the military in another capacity.

Portraits of the hostages are on display across Israel, along the sea promenade in Tel Aviv and in the arrivals hall at the country’s airport.

Some Israelis are also outraged that the ICC issued warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant alongside one for Mohammed Al-Masri, also known as Mohammed Deif, the Hamas leader who Israel claims was one of the masterminds of the October 7 attack.

The ICC “is saying that Gallant and Netanyahu are equal to Mohammed Deif… this is something that Israelis truly cannot comprehend, truly, truly cannot comprehend,” Siegal said.

Yael Vias Gvirsman represents the families of hundreds of Israeli victims of the October 7 attacks at the ICC and was in The Hague on Thursday when the warrants were issued. She said the warrant against Deif was an important recognition “that Hamas attacks consisted of extermination, torture, rape and other sexual crimes and inhumane treatment” and that it was good news for families she represents. “It’s the first step for recognition and the first step for them rebuilding their lives,” she said.

But she added that the simultaneous warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant were understandably met with “great shock” in Israel, “because it is a nation at its most difficult hour.”

The court said it found “reasonable grounds” to believe that Netanyahu bears criminal responsibility for war crimes including “starvation as a method of warfare” and “the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts.”

More than 43,000 Palestinians have been killed since October 7 last year, according to the health ministry in Gaza.

Netanyahu denounced the ICC move on Thursday, calling it an “antisemitic decision” and “a modern Dreyfus trial,” referring to the 1894 wrongful conviction of Jewish-French soldier Alfred Dreyfus, an affair that has since come to symbolize antisemitic persecution.

The prime minister said the ICC judges were “motivated by antisemitic sentiments against the one and only Jewish state.”

Meanwhile, opposition leader Yair Lapid called the arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant a “reward for terrorism.”

Implications for soldiers fighting in Gaza

While the ICC arrest warrants target only Netanyahu and Gallant, some are worried about the implications for the Israel Defense Forces and its soldiers.

Conscription is mandatory for most Jewish Israelis and some 300,000 reservists have been called up because of the war, on top of the estimated 170,000 active-duty soldiers.

The right-wing Israeli legal organization Shurat HaDin has warned about the arrest warrants “creating a dangerous precedent for the ICC to target other democratic armies and leaders.” The group has long warned about the ICC possibly opening a criminal investigation against Israeli soldiers.

Legal action at the ICC against Israeli soldiers, it said on its website, would “carry devastating effects” on Israel, and cause immediate personal risk to individuals “whose only blame is for serving their country and fighting terror.”

Refusals by potential recruits and reservists to serve are rare in Israel, but there are signs that they have been increasing amid the global outrage over the toll of the war in Gaza. Taking an unusually public stance, a group of more than 130 Israeli reservists signed an open letter to Netanyahu and Gallant last month, stating that they refuse to serve unless a deal is signed to end the war and bring back the hostages, saying that for some of them “the red line has already been crossed.”

Soul Behar Tsalik, an Israeli who intends to refuse his mandatory enlistment in the IDF next week, said the ICC warrant strengthens his commitment to refuse.

“Israel’s war machine does not only destroy Gaza but also hurts Israelis – in body and in spirit,” he told CNN. “I hope the ICC’s ruling will help make a change, will make my fellow Israelis realize the truth and severity of the claims against our leaders, and push Israel to leave Gaza, free the hostages and end the occupation as soon as possible.”

Breaking the Silence, an organization of Israeli veterans who oppose the war in Gaza and the occupation of the West Bank, was a rare voice of support for the ICC’s decision.

It said in a statement that the “flood of condemnations, an array of whataboutisms and countless allegations of antisemitism” was indicative of the Israeli “society’s insistence, even now, to not see what we are doing in Gaza.”

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CNN’s Michael Schwartz and Kareem Khadder contributed reporting.