Live Updates: Netanyahu’s Arrest Sought by International Criminal Court

The leak “exposed Israeli intelligence capabilities to Hamas, which was likely to harm national security and the functioning of security agencies,” according to the indictment. “It would also likely put people in life-threatening danger, particularly at a time of war.”

The families of the remaining hostages have denounced Mr. Netanyahu, arguing that he has favored the survival of his hard-line government over reaching a deal to win the release of their loved ones held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Mr. Netanyahu has said he is doing all he can, but he has also used the document Mr. Feldstein is accused of leaking to suggest that pressuring him serves Hamas’s agenda.

Mr. Feldstein was arrested, along with the military officer who leaked him the document, on Oct. 27. Lawyers for both men did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The indictment comes as Israeli authorities have pursued several lines of inquiry in recent weeks involving officials in Mr. Netanyahu’s office. They are being investigated for trying to bolster Mr. Netanyahu’s reputation by allegedly altering official transcripts of his conversations and intimidating people who controlled access to those records.

Mr. Netanyahu has also been on trial since before the war in Gaza in three separate corruption cases. The prime minister has staunchly denied any wrongdoing, accusing Israeli justice officials of a witch hunt against him, his family and his aides. He has similarly accused Israeli prosecutors of aggressively cracking down on Mr. Feldstein while ignoring his critics’ leaks to the news media.

“One case! And what about the rest of the leaks which are causing great damage to Israeli security?” Mr. Netanyahu said in a speech this week in Israel’s Parliament. “Well, we all understand what’s happening here.”

Mr. Feldstein, 32, a former military spokesman, acquired the classified document from the military officer, who was also indicted, prosecutors said. The document purported to lay out Hamas’s strategy in talks with Israel: waging psychological warfare to compel Israel to make concessions, in part by inciting public pressure to free the hostages.

Prosecutors say that the military officer, whose name has not been released publicly, first contacted Mr. Feldstein in June, offering to share classified information. But they made little use of the secret document until September, after Israeli soldiers found the bodies of six hostages who had been killed by their Hamas captors in a tunnel beneath the Gaza Strip.

Israelis had grown to intimately recognize the hostages’ names and faces after months of campaigning by their relatives. The abductees’ killings shocked the Israeli public and prompted large protests in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem calling on the government to reach a deal with Hamas to return the remaining hostages alive.

According to the indictment, Mr. Feldstein decided to leak the document in the hopes of “shifting the public discourse about the hostages in the wake of their murder.” He informed Yonatan Urich, another media adviser to Mr. Netanyahu, that he intended to leak the document, the indictment said.

Mr. Feldstein later sent the document by the messaging app Telegram to Raviv Golan, a journalist at an Israeli broadcaster. To comply with Israeli national security restrictions, Mr. Golan submitted the article for approval to the Israeli military, which banned it from publication, according to the indictment.

In an attempt to circumvent Israeli censorship, the indictment says, Mr. Urich connected Mr. Feldstein with a former adviser to Mr. Netanyahu, who helped him leak the document to foreign news organizations. Excerpts were ultimately published in Bild, although it did not publish an image of the document itself.

It is unclear what Mr. Netanyahu knew about the decision to leak classified information. According to the indictment, Mr. Feldstein sought to bring at least some of the information to the attention of the prime minister.

After the document was published in Bild, Mr. Feldstein urged local Israeli news outlets to pick up the report. Traditionally, Israeli outlets have been allowed to publish some news censored at home as long as they attribute it to the international press.

“Take your time; the boss is happy,” Mr. Urich wrote to Mr. Feldstein at the time, prosecutors said.

Mr. Feldstein subsequently ordered the military officer who had leaked him the document to erase their correspondence on messaging apps, according to the indictment.

Reporting was contributed by Johnatan Reiss from Tel Aviv and Myra Noveck from Jerusalem.

But the warrant did carry some moral weight, further isolating him among Western nations and putting him in the company of Omar Hassan al-Bashir, the deposed president of Sudan who was accused of atrocities in Darfur; Slobodan Milosevic, the Serbian leader imprisoned for abuses during the Balkans war; and the Nazis tried at Nuremberg after World War II.

And the warrant was not without practical consequences for Mr. Putin, limiting, to some degree his movements overseas. The warrant made the Russian leader subject to arrest in any of the 124 countries that are party to the international court.

For a year and a half after the warrant was issued, Mr. Putin did not test this. Then he scheduled his first visit to an I.C.C. member state, Mongolia. That nation is highly dependent on Russia, and when he went there, he was greeted not with handcuffs but with a red-carpet welcome and an honor guard.

Mongolian officials did not comment on the calls for Mr. Putin’s arrest, drawing condemnation from Ukraine.

“The Mongolian government’s failure to carry out the binding I.C.C. arrest warrant for Putin is a heavy blow to the International Criminal Court and the international criminal justice system,” Georgiy Tykhyi, a Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman, wrote on X. “Mongolia has allowed an accused criminal to evade justice, thereby sharing responsibility for the war crimes.”

Mr. Putin was not the first world leader wanted by the I.C.C. to avoid arrest on a visit to one of its member countries. Mr. al-Bashir of Sudan traveled to South Africa and Jordan in the years after he was charged. Those trips, too, drew international condemnation.

Despite the limitations on his travel, Mr. Putin has managed to work around the arrest warrant by inviting world leaders to Russia.

In October, Russia hosted a summit for a group known as BRICS — an acronym for Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — which this year also included Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates. For Mr. Putin, the gathering was a diplomatic victory and a chance to display Russian influence.

Mr. Putin also managed to travel to North Korea, not a member of the court, in June.

But his absence from some gatherings has been conspicuous. This week, the Group of 20 summit was held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, but Mr. Putin did not attend in person, instead appearing by video to address officials from the world’s 20 leading economies.

Like their Russian counterparts, Israeli officials have struck a dismissive tone with the I.C.C. warrant. But, like Mr. Putin, Mr. Netanyahu will have to calculate the possibility of arrest should he travel to I.C.C. member states. Israel’s staunchest ally, the United States, is not a party to the statute creating the court and will not be considered risky.

Mahmoud was wounded as his family fled their home after Israeli shells began falling, his mother, Noor Ajjour, says.

The going was slow, she says, and the boy went back to urge everyone on. But when an explosion ripped off one hand and mangled the other, his pleas changed, and he asked to be left behind.

“I am going to die,” his mother recalls him saying.

In Qatar, Mahmoud, 9, is using his feet for everything. “My biggest wish now is to get prosthetics,” he says.

Fatima Abu Shaar’s 14-year-old son had just cooked his first meal, a moment of celebration at a time when celebration was scarce. “It tastes great,” she recalls telling him.

Then the kitchen shook with explosions.

“My arm was severed in front of my eyes in the sink,” she says.

Her daughter Tala, 8, lost a foot, and is waiting for a prosthetic. “The thing that scares me the most now is my daughter’s future,” Ms. Abu Shaar says.

Neighbors found Ibrahim Qudeih, a 21-year-old nursing student, with wounds so grievous they thought he was dead.

Dareen al-Bayaa, 11, woke from a coma to learn that only she and her brother Kinan, 5, had survived an airstrike near their home. Their parents and brother were dead.

The war in the Gaza Strip began after Hamas attacked Israel, killing some 1,200 people. The Israeli military says it has taken measures to limit civilian harm as it tries to defeat the militants, but its campaign has taken a staggering toll on Palestinians.

Of the tens of thousands killed in the Israeli bombardment and invasion, Gazan health officials estimate about 15,000 were children. Many Gazans have suffered horrific wounds, but few have been able to leave for treatment. When some met with us in Qatar, they lamented those they left behind, the living and the dead alike.

The United States, which has been involved in major conflicts since the court’s creation, has abstained from membership,seeking to prevent the tribunal from being used to prosecute Americans.

More than 120 countries are members of the court, including many European nations, and members are formally committed to carrying out arrest warrants if a wanted person steps on their soil. But powerful nations including China, India, Russia and Israel, like the United States, are not members.

U.S. presidential administrations from both parties have argued in the past that the court should not exercise its authority over citizens from countries that are not a member of the court.

“There remains fear of actually being investigated by the court for the commission of atrocity crimes, given the military projection of both countries regionally or globally, and fear of being prosecuted for political, rather than evidence-based, reasons,” said David Scheffer, a former U.S. ambassador and a chief negotiator of the statute that established the court.

Mr. Scheffer added that there were strong rebuttals to those fears, including that “no country’s leaders should, as a matter of policy and of law, enjoy impunity for intentionally committing genocide, war crimes or crimes against humanity.” This argument, he said in an email, “has been pursued with determination (and American support) in Ukraine, which shortly will become the 125th member of the I.C.C.”

The Biden administration swiftly denounced the I.C.C.’s decision on Thursday.

“The United States fundamentally rejects the court’s decision to issue arrest warrants for senior Israeli officials,” a spokesman for President Biden’s National Security Council said in a statement. “We remain deeply concerned by the prosecutor’s rush to seek arrest warrants and the troubling process errors that led to this decision.”

Several prominent Republicans, too, condemned it, including Representative Michael Waltz, Republican of Florida, whom President-elect Donald J. Trump has tapped to be his national security adviser. Mr. Waltz said in a statement on Thursday that Israel had acted “lawfully” during the war in Gaza and that the United States had rejected the court’s charges.

He also warned the court and the United Nations about the Trump administration’s position toward the bodies once it takes office. “You can expect a strong response to the antisemitic bias of the ICC & UN come January,” he wrote on X.

The former ambassador John R. Bolton, who served as Mr. Trump’s national security adviser during his first term, condemned the court’s prosecutor, accusing him of “moral equivalence.”

“These indictments prove precisely what is wrong with the ICC. A publicity-hungry Prosecutor first goes after the victims of a terrorist attack, before going after the real criminals,” he said, adding “I hope this is the death knell of the ICC in the United States.”

Steven Erlanger contributed reporting.

Here’s a look at the hunger crisis in Gaza and its international impact.

What is the situation in Gaza?

Tens of thousands of people have been killed in Gaza since the armed group Hamas led a deadly attack on Israel on Oct. 7 that prompted Israel’s retaliation, and large parts of the enclave have been destroyed.

At the beginning of the war, Mr. Gallant announced a complete siege of Gaza and said that no food, water or electricity would get in. The blockade lasted for around three weeks, at which point limited supplies resumed, but the United Nations and aid groups say that Israel has imposed stringent conditions that have severely limited how much food reaches Gaza’s population of around 2.2 million people.

The New York Times found in a report this month that Israel was letting significantly less food and supplies into the territory than in the period before a warning from the Biden administration to let in more aid.

Israeli officials say that more aid has come into the enclave than has been distributed and that aid workers have failed to deliver it effectively. They say that aid is screened before it enters Gaza to make sure it does not contain items, such as metal objects, that could potentially be used by Hamas. Some Israeli politicians have also argued that food should not enter Gaza while Hamas continues to hold Israeli hostages.

How bad is the hunger crisis?

Earlier this month, a U.N. panel warned that famine is imminent in northern Gaza, where for weeks Israeli forces have been conducting an operation that the military says is aimed at preventing Hamas from re-establishing a foothold.

The panel, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, said that 13 months of war had created “an imminent and substantial likelihood of famine” because of the “rapidly deteriorating situation in the Gaza Strip.”

Aid groups point out that Gaza had low rates of malnutrition before the war, suggesting that the conflict is responsible for the crisis.

Philippe Lazzarini, the head of UNRWA, the main U.N. agency that aids Palestinians, said on Thursday that people in northern Gaza were “trapped with no safe place to go.” He said that they had been deprived of humanitarian aid for 40 days as a result of the military action.

UNRWA also said that in the cities of Deir al Balah, in central Gaza, and Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, bakeries supported by humanitarian aid could run out of flour within days.

“Delays in fuel and flour deliveries are compounding the crisis, leaving countless people without access to bread,” it said on social media.

What do the arrest warrants say?

The court did not release the warrants, but it said in a news release about its decision that there were reasonable grounds to believe that Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Gallant “intentionally and knowingly deprived the civilian population in Gaza of objects indispensable to their survival, including food, water, and medicine and medical supplies, as well as fuel and electricity” between Oct. 8 of last year and May 20, when the chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, requested the warrants.

It also said there was reason to believe that they impeded humanitarian aid for Gazans in violation of international law.

The restrictions on aid and cutoffs of electricity and fuel supplies “also had a severe impact on the availability of water in Gaza and the ability of hospitals to provide medical care,” the court said. It said that the decisions to increase the flow of aid were often conditional and made in response to international pressure.

The court also issued an arrest warrant for Hamas’s military chief, Muhammad Deif, accusing him, too, of crimes against humanity. Israel has said that it killed Mr. Deif in an airstrike, but the court said it could not confirm whether he was dead.

If Mr. Deif is found to have violated international law, then he should be prosecuted as well, Mr. Skeek said — “though I don’t think he did,” he added.

Layan Shoashaa, a 20-year-old student of multimedia graphics from Gaza City, embraced the news of the warrants for the two Israeli leaders, but with reservations.

“This war has made it clear that the balance of power heavily favors Israel and its allies, not us,” she said at a cafe in the city of Deir al-Balah, where her displaced family has been staying. “I cannot see this as a historic step, for justice delayed is justice denied.”

Still, she said, any step taken against the two Israeli leaders brought “a glimmer of hope.”

Some hopedthe news might spell the end of the war in Gaza, which began after the Hamas-led attack on Israel a little more than a year ago. Rami Moleg, a 44-year-old father of four, described himself as “very pleased.”

“I hope this means the war is coming to an end,” he said. “Netanyahu has been under internal pressure already, and I hope this adds huge international pressure that would lead him to quit or be toppled.”

As long as Mr. Netanyahu is in charge, the war will continue, Mr. Moleg believes. But he said he thought Mr. Deif was probably dead.

“I don’t care much about his future or the future of Hamas,” he said. “I care about my own future and the future of my children.”

Ahmed Jarbou, 23, who was hanging out with a group of friends in Deir al-Balah, said he doubted that much good would results from the warrants.

“Palestinians have seen countless resolutions in our favor from the Security Council, yet nothing tangible ever comes of them,” he said. “I fear this might just be another empty gesture. But I still hold a small hope that it leads to action soon, perhaps even a temporary cease-fire to ease the dire situation in Gaza.”

Abu Bakr Bashir contributed reporting.

The court has 124 signatories, all of which are formally obliged to carry out the arrest warrants if Mr. Netanyahu, Mr. Gallant or any other person wanted by the court steps on their soil, even if by accident, as, for example, because of an aircraft malfunction requiring an unscheduled landing.

The warrants “are binding on all parties to the I.C.C.,” said Philippe Sands, an expert in international law who has argued before the court. “If they set foot on the territory of a state party, that state party has an obligation to arrest and transfer to The Hague. That’s pretty binding.”

But the United States and Israel are not signatories to the court, nor are China, Russia, India, and several other countries. Even countries that are signatories do not always comply with the court’s arrest warrants, especially when leaders of powerful countries are involved.

Mongolia, an I.C.C. member that is deeply dependent on Russia for fuel, not only did not arrest the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, who is wanted by the court on charges of war crimes stemming from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it greeted him with an official state ceremony in September.

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil had said that there was “no reason” that Mr. Putin should fear attending the Group of 20 summit in Rio de Janeiro this year, though Mr. Putin sent his foreign minister instead.

But Mr. Putin has steered clear of Europe and the United States since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Mr. Netanyahu, on the other hand, has continued to tour foreign capitals and appear at the United Nations since the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and the subsequent war in Gaza.

Europe, which is considered a pillar of the court’s support, represents potentially the most problematic region for Mr. Netanyahu. Britain and France both reaffirmed the court’s standing, though they stopped short of saying whether they would arrest him if he crossed their borders.

“We respect the independence of the I.C.C., which is the primary international institution for investigating and prosecuting the most serious crimes of international concern,” said a spokesman for 10 Downing Street, who spoke on condition that he not be identified by name. Israel, he added, has “the right to defend itself in accordance with international law.”

Norway’s foreign minister, Espen Barth Eide, said, “It is important that the I.C.C. carries out its mandate in a judicious manner.” In Ireland, which has voiced strong support for the Palestinians in the Gaza conflict, the prime minister, Simon Harris, called the warrants “an extremely significant step.”

The Dutch foreign minister, Caspar Veldkamp, told his country’s Parliament that the Netherlands would act on the warrants, according to Reuters. Mr. Veldkamp has canceled a visit to Israel planned for next week, according to the Israeli foreign minister, Gideon Saar.

But Mr. Netanyahu has his own political allies among I.C.C. member nations. The president of Argentina, Javier Milei, harshly criticized the court’s action, saying it “ignores Israel’s legitimate right to defend itself in the face of constant attacks by terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Hezbollah.”

Mr. Milei, who has also established close ties to President-elect Donald J. Trump, stopped short of saying Mr. Netanyahu would be protected from arrest if he visited Argentina.

In the United States, the arrest warrants were criticized by the Biden White House, people in Mr. Trump’s orbit and longtime critics of the I.C.C., like John R. Bolton, who served as national security adviser in Mr. Trump’s first term.

“These indictments prove precisely what is wrong with the I.C.C.,” Mr. Bolton said in an email. “A publicity-hungry prosecutor first goes after the victims of a terrorist attack, before going after the real criminals.”

Representative Michael G. Waltz, the Florida Republican named by Mr. Trump as his next national security adviser, posted on social media, “The ICC has no credibility and these allegations have been refuted by the U.S. government.” He said the new administration would respond to the “antisemitic bias of the ICC & UN.”

Many in Israel and in the American Congress will judge the warrants as based on politics and not international law, said Daniel Reisner, a lawyer and former head of the international law branch of the Israeli military’s legal division.

“Irrespective of what people think of Netanyahu or Gallant, neither of them committed genocide or war crimes, and that the court alleges otherwise is an indication of the travesty of international law when facing highly politicized disputes,” Mr. Reisner said.

Still, the world will be a smaller place for Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Gallant, even with the support of the United States. The two men will have to plan their trips very carefully, Mr. Reisner said.

Defenders of the court said the symbolism of issuing arrest warrants for leaders of a democratic country was profound.

“Modern constitutional democracies are expected to restrain lawless behavior by their leaders, especially war crimes,” said Harold Hongju Koh, an expert in international law who teaches at Yale Law School and served in the State Department during the Obama administration.

The arrest warrants could enhance the reputation of international institutions in the non-Western world, where they are sometimes criticized as tools of the West.

Dahlia Scheindlin, an Israeli analyst and pollster, said: “The warrants could prop up the legitimacy of international institutions already damaged from so many failures, and this could revive the sense of some consistent application of the law to Western countries, even those backed by the United States.”

But they are likely to face great opposition in Washington, where members of Congress threatened sanctions against the court when its prosecutor first asked for the warrants to be issued.

“The U.S. will go ballistic,” Ms. Scheindlin said, “and it could also begin a significant undermining of the court by the world’s most powerful nation.”

Jack Nicas contributed reporting from Jerusalem, and Stephen Castle from London

Yair Lapid, the leader of the political opposition and a fierce critic of Mr. Netanyahu, called the warrants “a prize for terror.”

“Israel is protecting itself against terrorist organizations who attacked, murdered and raped our citizens,” he said.

Mr. Netanyahu’s office in a statement rejected what it called “the absurd and false accusations” and said Israel would continue its military campaign in Gaza, which began more than a year ago after Hamas militants attacked Israel in October 2023.

“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will not surrender to the pressures,” his office added. “He will not recoil or withdraw until all of the war’s goals — that were set at the start of the battle — are achieved.”

The warrants issued Thursday include accusations of using starvation as a weapon of war and “intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population.” Mr. Netanyahu has pushed back on the allegation of starving Palestinians in Gaza, pointing to the trucks of food that Israel has permitted to enter Gaza.

While Israel has allowed food to enter Gaza, hunger in the territory has remained widespread. Humanitarian workers have said looting by criminal gangs has hampered the delivery of aid and accused the Israeli military of denying convoys permission to deliver goods to warehouses.

Israel has blamed the aid organizations for inefficiency and contended that Hamas has stolen aid, too.

Gideon Saar, Israel’s foreign minister, said the court was experiencing “a dark moment” and asserted it had “lost all legitimacy for its existence and activity.”

“It acted as a political tool in the service of the most extreme terrorists working to undermine peace, security and stability in the Middle East,” he said. “This is an attack on the most threatened and targeted nation in the world — also the only country in the region openly called for and acted against by other nations seeking its elimination.”

Benny Gantz, a prominent member of the opposition, said the I.C.C. decision was a “shameful stain of historic proportion that will never be forgotten.”

The I.C.C. also said Thursday that it had issued a warrant for the arrest of Muhammad Deif, Hamas’s military chief, for crimes against humanity, including murder, kidnapping and sexual violence. Israel said in August that it had killed Mr. Deif, but the I.C.C. said it could not confirm his death.

Despite the show of solidarity among politicians, some Israelis offered criticism of the government.

Yonatan Shamriz‎, the brother of an Israeli hostage accidentally killed by the Israeli military in Gaza in December, said the warrants were a “difficult decision, one that stains our country and places it alongside nations we would not want to resemble.”

The warrants could have been avoided, he said in a social media post, if Israel had established a national commission of inquiry that proved “we are examining ourselves and learning lessons.”

Other Israelis went further, defending the court’s decision. B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights group, said the arrest warrants were “one of the lowest points in Israeli history” and called for them to be enforced.

“It isn’t surprising that the evidence indicates that Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Gallant are responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity,” it said. “Personal accountability for decision makers is a key element in the struggle for justice and freedom for all human beings living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.”

Johnatan Reiss contributed reporting.

The text of the warrants was kept secret to protect witnesses, the court said in its statement, but the judges released some details “since conduct similar to that addressed in the warrant of arrest appears to be ongoing.”

The court said that there were reasonable grounds to find that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, the former Israeli defense minister, bear responsibility for “the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts.”

Mr. Netanyahu’s office rejected the assertions, calling them “absurd and false” and accusing the court of being motivated by antisemitism and hatred of the Jewish state. Israeli officials — as well as some aid workers — have blamed rampant lawlessness in Gaza, including attacks by armed gangs on convoys ferrying relief, as a major reason for the dire conditions.

The court said some Gazans had died from deprivation in part imposed by Israeli restrictions on the flow of aid, providing legal grounds for suspected murder. The judges also argued that restrictions on food and medicine to Gazans as a whole could amount to the crime of persecution under international law.

The number of relief convoys reaching desperate Gazans has fluctuated significantly over the course of the war. Health officials in Gaza say malnutrition has played a role in the deaths of at least some people, including young children.

Aid officials say Israel has often impeded their work, not allowing them to bring in enough food, medicine and fuel. Israeli officials have sometimes argued that there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza; at other times, they have blamed aid organizations, saying they lack the logistical capacity to effectively ferry supplies through the enclave or prevent looting.

But the court said that Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Gallant had “intentionally and knowingly” deprived Gazans of “objects indispensable to their survival, including food, water and medicine and medical supplies.”

Israel has made some changes, including by opening new land crossings for aid to enter Gaza. But the court argued that those changes only came in response to pressure from the Biden administration and the international community, not from an Israeli attempt to comply with international law.

“In any event, the increases in humanitarian assistance were not sufficient to improve the population’s access to essential goods,” the court said.

Separately, both Israeli leaders bore responsibility “as civilian superiors” for “intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population,” the court said. The judges said they had found two attacks that were “intentionally directed against civilians,” though it did not elaborate on what they were.

The court also issued an arrest warrant for Muhammad Deif, Hamas’s military chief, who oversaw the Oct. 7 attacks. Israel announced in August that it had killed Mr. Deif in an airstrike in southern Gaza that killed dozens of Palestinians, although Hamas has yet to confirm his death.

The court said its prosecutors were “not in a position to determine whether Mr. Deif has been killed or remains alive,” so had decided to issue the arrest warrants anyway.

As the commander of Hamas’s armed wing,Mr. Deif plotted the attacks alongside other Hamas leaders. In a sweeping, coordinated assault, Hamas fighters broke through Israel’s defenses and led an attack that killed about 1,200 people and took more than 200 others hostage in Gaza.

In its statement, the court said there were reasonable grounds to hold Mr. Deif responsible for numerous crimes against humanity, including murder, torture, sexual violence, and hostage taking.

Karim Khan, the court’s chief prosecutor, had also requested arrest warrants for Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’s leader, and Ismail Haniyeh, who led the group’s political bureau. Mr. Haniyeh was assassinated in Tehran in July, in an operation widely attributed to Israel, while Israeli troops killed Mr. Sinwar in October. Both of their deaths were confirmed by Hamas.

Here is a closer look at some of the leaders for whom warrants have been issued by the court since its creation more than two decades ago.

Vladimir Putin of Russia

The court issued an arrest warrant for Mr. Putin in March 2023 over crimes committed during Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, including for the forcible deportation of children. A warrant was also issued for Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights.

Mr. Putin has since made several international trips, including to China, which is not a member of the court. His first state visit to an I.C.C. member since the warrant was issued was in September, to Mongolia, where he received a red-carpet welcome.

Omar Hassan al-Bashir of Sudan

The court issued warrants in 2009 and 2010 for Mr. al-Bashir, citing genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in the western region of Darfur.

The court has also charged several other Sudanese officials, including a former defense minister, Abdel Raheem Muhammad Hussein, with crimes in Darfur.

In 2015, Mr. al-Bashir traveled to an African Union summit in South Africa in defiance of the warrant, but was not arrested.

Mr. al-Bashir, 80, was deposed in 2019 after three decades in power, and also faces charges in Sudan related to the 1989 coup that propelled him to power. He could receive the death sentence or life in prison on those charges if convicted.

Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya

The court issued arrest warrants in 2011 for Libya’s then leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, along with one of his sons and his intelligence chief, accusing them of crimes against humanity during the first two weeks of the uprising in Libya that led to a NATO bombing campaign.

Mr. Qaddafi was killed by rebels in Libya months later and never appeared before the court. His son remains at large.

William Ruto of Kenya

The court dropped a case in 2016 against William Ruto, then Kenya’s deputy president, who had been charged in 2011 with crimes against humanity and other offenses in connection with post-election violence in Kenya in 2007 and 2008. Mr. Ruto was elected president of Kenya in 2022.

Laurent Gbagbo of Ivory Coast

The former president of Ivory Coast, Laurent Gbagbo, was also indicted by the court in 2011 over acts committed during violence after the country’s elections in 2010.

Mr. Gbagbo and another leader in Ivory Coast, Charles Blé Goudé, were acquitted in 2021.