TEHRAN - Israel’s war minister Yoav Gallant on Tuesday urged “nations of the civilized world” to oppose the request by the International Criminal Court Prosecutor Ahmad Khan for arrest warrants against Israel’s leaders and to declare they would ignore the warrants.

Khan told CNN on Monday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Gallant would be charged with “starvation of civilians as a method of warfare as a war crime” and “extermination and/or murder… including in the context of deaths caused by starvation, as a crime against humanity” in the ongoing humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip.

Gallant is presenting war criminals like himself and Netanyahu among civilized figures and those who are seeking prosecution for the criminals as uncivilized.

Gallant also said it is “disgraceful” to interfere in Israel’s more than seven-month-old war against Hamas.

Writing in a post on X, Gallant said, “The attempt by Prosecutor Karim Khan to deny the State of Israel the right to self-defense and to free its hostages must be rejected out of hand.”

Contrary to Gallant’s claims, Khan didn’t reject the right to defense.  He just said the right to defense “does not absolve Israel or any state of its obligation to comply with international humanitarian law.”

Israel is not just fighting Hamas which launched an attack on southern Israel on October 7. It has primarily launched an ethnic cleansing against the Gazans to drive them out of the Gaza Strip. 

If Israel is really fighting Hamas, why is it starving 2.3 million people as a collective punishment?

“The fact that Hamas fighters need water doesn’t justify denying water from all the civilian population of Gaza,” Khan said.

During its relentless bombardments and land invasion, Israel has made numerous atrocities that are clear examples of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. It has prevented or delayed the delivery of humanitarian aid, exterminated entire families, attacked ambulances and medical staff, shot dead people struggling to reach aid trucks to get food for their starved families, and many other atrocities.

Gallant is not only intentionally distorting the meaning of civilization he is also justifying dropping hundreds of thousands of bombs on civilians, who take shelter in UN-run facilities, schools, churches and hospitals, as self-defense.

Despite what it claims, Israel is mostly fighting the civilian population to force them to flee the remaining Palestinian lands, both in Gaza and the West Bank.

So far European countries such as France, Belgium and Slovenia have backed the ICC’s move to issue arrest warrants against war criminals in the Gaza war.

Based on the views of Gallant and other Israeli officials these three countries are uncivilized. Likewise, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell, who has also said “all States that have ratified the ICC statutes are bound to execute” the rulings of the court “as an independent international institution”, is an uncivilized person.

Even Germany which comes after the United States in supplying arms to Israel in the war against Gaza is caught in a quandary. It can neither flatly reject ICC’s move to issue arrest warrants nor it can abandon Israel which it has ardently and blindly supported.

While an unnamed government spokesperson has told the Bild newspaper published on Wednesday that “the chief prosecutor's allegations are serious and must be substantiated,” Germany on Monday said it “respects the independence and procedures” of the ICC.

Contrary to what Gallant claims the civilized world wants those who have been committing crimes in Gaza to face justice and consider the offenders as uncivilized, sadistic, and war criminals.