Far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Tuesday that he was seeking a warrant for his arrest, which prosecutors at the International Criminal Court called a “declaration of war.”
In a speech from his office in Jerusalem, Smotrich did not say why the court was seeking the writ request, but suggested it was because it is pushing for the massive expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.
In April, Israel quietly approved more than 30 new settler outposts and farms as part of a broader push to tighten Israeli control over the territory and eliminate the possibility of establishing a Palestinian state.
In a statement to CNN, the ICC said it could not comment and that the arrest warrant application was classified or sealed. The process begins with a prosecutor requesting an arrest warrant and can occur in secret before a judge decides whether to issue one.
In his speech, Smotrich called the settlement expansion a “revolution” in what he called Judea and Samaria, using the Biblical term for the West Bank. He said that during the current administration, Israel had approved more than 100 new settlements. He has repeatedly celebrated the recognition of new settlements as a step toward increasing Israeli sovereignty in the West Bank, and has publicly stated that his goal is to prevent the possibility of a Palestinian state.
“We are planning, building, paving and regulating, making this pioneering settlement project irreversible,” Smotrich boasted. He said Israel would “immediately” evacuate the Bedouin community of Khan al-Ahmar, east of Jerusalem, in response to the ICC prosecutor’s request for a warrant. This small community has long been a target of the Israeli right. Without providing any evidence, Smotrich said “by all indications” the Palestinian Authority, which controls parts of the West Bank, was responsible for the ICC move. CNN has reached out to the Palestinian Authority for comment.
Israeli officials told CNN that Israel believes the ICC may also seek arrest warrants for Defense Minister Israel Katz and far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir. Ben Gvir said in a statement that he “feels neither fear nor deterrence.”
Israel captured the West Bank from Jordan in the 1967 war and subsequently began establishing Jewish settlements there, a move that the United Nations and much of the international community considers illegal under international law. The United Nations also considers the West Bank and East Jerusalem to be occupied territory where Palestinians aspire to a future state.
In November 2024, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Prime Minister Netanyahu criticized the arrest warrant as “absurd and anti-Semitic.”
At the time, the court also issued an arrest warrant for Hamas military leader Mohamed Deif, who was killed in an airstrike several months earlier.
