New Delhi:

Denouncing the International Criminal Court (ICC), Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu likened the court’s arrest warrant against him to the infamous Dreyfus trial of 1894.  The Dreyfus trial, which began in 1894, involved a Jewish French army officer falsely accused of treason based on fabricated evidence. 

The ICC’s move accuses Netanyahu and former Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant of war crimes in the ongoing Gaza conflict, a decision Netanyahu lambasted as “anti-Semitic” and reflective of a “modern-day Dreyfus trial.”

“The anti-Semitic decision of the International Criminal Court is comparable to a modern-day Dreyfus trial – and it will end in the same way,” Netanyahu declared, referring to the wrongful conviction of Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish French army officer, in a landmark case that exposed deep anti-Semitism in late 19th-century France.

The Dreyfus Affair was one of the most controversial legal scandals of 19th-century France, marked by anti-Semitism and judicial corruption. Alfred Dreyfus, a French Jewish army captain, was wrongfully convicted of treason in 1894 based on fabricated evidence. Stripped of his rank in a humiliating public ceremony and exiled to Devil’s Island, a former penal colony in french Guayana, Dreyfus’s plight became a symbol of systemic injustice and anti-Semitism.

French authorities accused Dreyfus of leaking military secrets based on a scrap of handwriting vaguely resembling his own. The trial, fueled by rampant anti-Semitism, resulted in a conviction despite evidence pointing to another officer, Ferdinand Esterhazy, as the true culprit. The case divided France, with prominent intellectuals like Émile Zola denouncing the injustice in his famous open letter, J’accuse…!

The ICC has issued warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza following Hamas’s brutal October 7 attacks on Israel. These attacks, which left over 1,400 Israelis dead and led to the kidnapping of hundreds, triggered a massive Israeli military response, resulting in immense loss of life and devastation in Gaza. The warrants mark the first time an Israeli head of state has been targeted by the court.

Netanyahu rejected the ICC’s actions as “absurd and false,” accusing Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan of corruption and alleging the decision was an attempt to distract from accusations of sexual harassment against Khan – charges Khan has denied. Israeli President Isaac Herzog described the ICC’s move as a “dark day for justice,” while Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said the court had “lost all legitimacy.”

Human rights group B’Tselem, however, welcomed the ICC’s actions, urging international enforcement of the warrants. The group called the warrants “a critical step toward accountability for leaders responsible for crimes committed in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”
 

Majdal Shams:

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who on Monday visited the site of a deadly attack in the annexed Golan Heights, vowed Israel would deliver a “severe response” to the rocket fire that killed 12 children.

“Like all Israeli citizens, and I must say like many around the world, we were deeply shaken by this horrific killing,” Netanyahu said at the site of the attack, according to a statement issued by his office.

“These children are our children … The State of Israel will not, and cannot, let this pass. Our response will come and it will be severe.”

Scores of residents of Majdal Shams protested at Netanyahu’s visit which came after the last of the victim was buried on Monday, with hundreds of Druze men and women gathering for the funeral, an AFP journalist reported.

Many residents of Majdal Shams have not accepted Israeli nationality since Israel seized the Golan Heights from Syria in 1967.

The 12 children aged between 10 and 16 were killed on Saturday when a rocket fired from Lebanon struck a football pitch in the Druze Arab town of Majdal Shams where they were playing.

According to the Israeli military, they were hit by an Iranian-made rocket carrying a 50-kilogramme warhead, adding it was fired by Lebanese armed group Hezbollah.

Hezbollah, which has traded regular cross-border fire with Israeli forces since the Gaza war began in early October, has denied responsibility for the strike, though it claimed multiple attacks on Israeli military positions that day.

Hezbollah says its actions against Israeli forces are in support of Palestinians in Gaza and its ally, the Hamas group.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)