By Ahmet Gencturk
ATHENS (AA) – The Netherlands will arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netantayu should he set foot in the country, said Foreign Minister Casper Veldkamp, as reported by the local media on Thursday.
“The Netherlands respects the decision of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to issue an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. If he comes to Dutch soil, he will be arrested,” Veldkamp told the country’s parliament, public broadcaster NOS announced.
The same applies to former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and senior Hamas executive Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri, who the ICC also issued arrest warrants for, he added.
Veldkamp also stressed that the Netherlands will cut all non-essential contacts with the Israeli government, whose top officials have been accused of crimes against humanity and war crimes in the Gaza Strip.
The Netherlands implements 100% the Rome Statute that regulates the establishment of the ICC, based in The Hague, and how its rulings are dealt with, Veldkamp said.
Gallant was fired earlier this month, but other than the last few weeks, was Israel’s top defense official during its 13-month assault in Gaza, which the ICC warrant focuses on.
The warrants come as Israel’s genocidal offensive in Gaza recently entered its second year, having already killed some 44,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children, and injured over 103,000 others.
The Israeli onslaught has displaced almost the entire population of the territory amid an ongoing and deliberate blockade that has led to severe shortages of food, clean water, and medicine, pushing the population to the brink of starvation.