Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader in Gaza who masterminded the bloodiest attack on Jews in a single day since the Holocaust, is now seeking to have arrest warrants against him and other Hamas leaders canceled by the International Criminal Court (ICC). The ICC prosecutor's office announced Monday it was seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his defense chief, and three Hamas leaders, including Sinwar, for alleged war crimes committed during the Gaza war that erupted in October 2023.
Hamas denounced on Monday a decision of the International Criminal Court's prosecutor to seek arrest warrants for three of its leaders and demanded that the request be canceled. The terrorist Palestinian group also said in a statement that the ICC prosecutor's request for arrest warrants against Israel's prime minister and defense chief had come "seven months too late".
The war was triggered by a Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7. Israel has denied committing any war crimes, stating the military action was in response to Hamas' assault. A senior Hamas official condemned the ICC's decision, stating "it equates the victim with the executioner." The arrest warrants still need approval from the ICC's pre-trial judges, who will determine if there is sufficient evidence to issue them.
Less than a year before the October attack, Sinwar had told a rally in Gaza that Hamas would deploy a "flood" of fighters and rockets against Israel. His speech, while containing typical "crowd-pleasing hyperbole", proved to be an ominous foreshadowing.
On October 7, Hamas fighters broke through Gaza's border fence and launched an assault that killed 1,200 people, shattering Israel's reputation as an invincible enemy. Sinwar had declared at the 2022 rally, "We will come to you with endless rockets, we will come to you in a limitless flood of soldiers, we will come to you with millions of our people, like the repeating tide."
The war set off by the October 7 attack has devastated Gaza, as Israel seeks to eliminate the terrorist Hamas group. Sinwar, who began as a ruthless enforcer punishing collaborators with Israel before rising to a leadership role after his 2011 prison release, has been at the top of Israel's assassination list.
