US President Joe Biden has termed as “outrageous” the application by the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to have an arrest warrant issued against Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant.

“The ICC prosecutor’s application for arrest warrants against Israeli leaders is outrageous. And let me be clear: whatever this prosecutor might imply, there is no equivalence — none — between Israel and Hamas,” Biden said on Monday.

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US Secretary of State Antony Blinken termed the ICC prosecutor’s equivalence of Israel with Hamas “shameful”.

“We reject the prosecutor’s equivalence of Israel with Hamas. It is shameful. Hamas is a brutal terrorist organisation that carried out the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust and is still holding dozens of innocent people, hostage, including Americans,” he said.

The US had made clear before the current war that the ICC had no jurisdiction in this matter, Blinken said.

He noted that Israel had cooperated with the prosecutor, even though it was not a member of the court.

“Fundamentally, this decision does nothing to help and could jeopardise, ongoing efforts to reach a ceasefire agreement that would get hostages out and surge humanitarian assistance in, which are the goals the US continues to pursue relentlessly,” Blinken concluded.