Exclusive: ICC prosecutor's office seeks arrest warrant for Israel's Smotrich

Exclusive: ICC prosecutor's office seeks arrest warrant for Israel's Smotrich Submitted by Sondos Asem on Mon, 05/18/2026 - 10:11 Charges sought against Israeli finance minister over West Bank occupation include crime of apartheid against Palestinians Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich takes part in the annual Jerusalem Day march in the Old City of Jerusalem, 14 May 2026 (Reuters/Ammar Awad) Off The office of the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court last month filed a secret arrest warrant application for Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, sources briefed on the matter told Middle East Eye. Israeli media reports over the weekend claiming the prosecutor’s office had filed five applications for Israeli officials are inaccurate, MEE understands. An evidence review took place on Wednesday last week to examine the possibility of two more warrant applications, including one for national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir, but they have yet to be filed. MEE understands that the charges against Smotrich include forced displacement as a crime against humanity and war crime, the transfer of Israel’s own population as a war crime, and persecution and apartheid as crimes against humanity. If approved by the ICC’s pre-trial chamber the warrant for Smotrich would be the first ever issued by an international court for the crime of apartheid. The application was filed on 2 April, following repeated Palestinian demands for the prosecutor’s office to take action on Smotrich and Ben Gvir. In a letter to the ICC's deputy prosecutors in March, seen by MEE, Palestin...

Original source: Middle East Eye