\n Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Monday that a war crimes case against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the Gaza war was insufficient and that he deserved a \"death sentence\".\n<\/p>\n
\n In his first remarks since the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu last week, Khamenei told a Tehran meeting that it was \"not enough\".\n<\/p>\n
\n His country, Israel's arch nemesis, backs armed movements in the region including Palestinian militant group Hamas, whose October 7, 2023 attack sparked the war.\n<\/p>\n
\n The ICC's judges said there were \"reasonable grounds\" to believe that Netanyahu and his former defence minister Yoav Gallant bore \"criminal responsibility\" for using starvation as a method of warfare and intentionally attacking civilians in the Gaza Strip.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"They issued an arrest warrant for him, it's not enough,\" said Khamenei, speaking to a group from the Basij paramilitary force which is linked to Iran's Revolutionary Guards.\n<\/p>\n
\n Instead, the Iranian leader called for \"Netanyahu's death sentence\" -- which the ICC cannot order.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"The death sentence of these criminal leaders should be issued,\" said Khamenei.\n<\/p>\n
\n Israel's campaign in Gaza over the past 13 months \"is not a victory but a war crime\", added the supreme leader, who has the final say in all matters of state.\n<\/p>\n
\n The judges of The Hague-based ICC can order prison terms of up to 30 years and under exceptional circumstances life sentences. The court cannot issue death sentences.\n<\/p>\n
\n The pre-trial arrest warrant theoretically limits Netanyahu's movement, as any of the court's 124 member states would be obliged to arrest him on their territory.\n<\/p>\n
\n The court's chief prosecutor Karim Khan urged national members to act on the warrants, and for non-members -- a category that includes Israel, Iran, the United States, China and others -- to work together in \"upholding international law\".\n<\/p>\n
\n Tehran does not recognise Israel and is a staunch ally of Hamas and Lebanon's Hezbollah, whose militants have been fighting Israeli forces for months.\n<\/p>\n
\n Khamenei told the Basij paramilitaries that Iranian forces, which have largely avoided direct involvement in the ongoing regional conflict, \"will eventually destroy the Zionist regime\".<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Monday that a war crimes case against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the Gaza war was insufficient and that he deserved a \"death sentence\". In his first remarks since the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu last week, Khamenei told a Tehran […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[553],"tags":[],"ji_location":[],"class_list":["post-138757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-feed"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n