Currently Online 
ICC rejects Israeli bid to block Gaza war crimes investigation
The appeals chamber of the International Criminal Court (ICC) has rejected one of Israel’s legal challenges seeking to block an investigation into its actions in the genocidal war against the Palestinian people in Gaza, dealing a blow to Israel’s efforts to derail the case.
In their decision issued on Monday, judges refused to overturn a lower court decision allowing the ICC prosecutor to investigate alleged crimes in Israel’s war on Gaza following the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023.
The decision clears the way for the continuation of the court’s Palestine investigation, which led to the issuance of arrest warrants in November last year for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Israel does not recognise the jurisdiction of the Hague-based court and has repeatedly denied committing war crimes in Gaza.
The ICC had also issued an arrest warrant for Hamas leader Ibrahim al-Masri, but later withdrew it after credible reports of his death.
The appeal focused on whether the ICC prosecutor was required to issue a fresh notification to Israel before investigating events that took place after October 7, 2023. Israel argued that the post-October 7 assault on Gaza constituted a new situation, triggered by additional referrals submitted to the court by seven other countries since November 2023, including South Africa, Chile and Mexico.
Judges rejected that argument, ruling that the original notification issued in 2021 – when the ICC formally opened its investigation into alleged crimes in occupied Palestine – already covered later events.
They said no new notification was required, meaning the arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant remain valid.
The ruling comes as Israel’s assault on Gaza continues to exact a devastating toll. Since a ceasefire took effect on October 11, 2025, at least 391 Palestinians have been killed and 1,063 wounded, and 632 bodies recovered, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health.
Since October 7, 2023, the ministry says, at least 70,663 Palestinians have been killed and 171,139 injured.
US said to rebuke Netanyahu for hit on Hamas general, amid broader anger over Gaza
https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-said-to-rebuke-netanyahu-for-hit-on-hamas-general-amid-broader-anger-over-gaza/
The White House sent a stiff rebuke to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the Israeli strike on senior Hamas commander Raad Saad on Saturday, two US officials told a US outlet.
“The White House message to Netanyahu was, ‘If you want to ruin your reputation and show that you don’t abide by agreements, be our guest, but we won’t allow you to ruin President Trump’s reputation after he brokered the deal in Gaza,'” one of the US officials told Axios on Monday.
The US told Netanyahu that Israel violated the ceasefire with the strike, the report said.
The officials told the US outlet that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, top envoy Steve Witkoff, and Middle East adviser Jared Kushner are fed up with Netanyahu. “Steve and Jared are pissed by Israeli inflexibility around several Gaza-related issues,” said one of the Americans.
...
The reported allegations by the administration came two weeks before Netanyahu and Trump are scheduled to meet at the president’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
An Israeli official told Axios that the White House is indeed displeased, but sent a relatively restrained message that “certain Arab countries” saw the assassination as a violation of the ceasefire. The officials added that it was Hamas that had violated the ceasefire by carrying out attacks on soldiers and trying to smuggle weapons into Gaza.
But the White House felt that Israel was unnecessarily angering potential Arab partners and would not move on from the war in Gaza to a new era of peace-making, according to US officials who spoke to Axios.
Over the last two years, Netanyahu has become “a global pariah. He should ask himself why [Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-] Sissi refuses to meet him and why, five years after the Abraham Accords, he still hasn’t been invited to visit the UAE,” a US official said. “The Trump administration is doing a lot of hard work to fix it. But if Netanyahu doesn’t want to take the steps that are needed to de-escalate, we are not going to waste our time on trying to expand the Abraham Accords.”
A government official told The Times of Israel on Friday that the premier is actively seeking a sit-down with Sissi, but Cairo still fears that Israel has not ruled out efforts to push Palestinians southwards in the Strip toward Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula — a possibility it considers a red line and a national security threat.
The White House is also upset over settler violence in the West Bank, according to a senior US official. “The US doesn’t ask Netanyahu to compromise Israel’s security. We ask him not to take steps that are perceived in the Arab world as provocations,” the official told Axios.
The only reason the US does anything to reign in Netanyahu is to protect Trump's deals with the Arab states...
