The office of the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court filed a secret arrest warrant application last month for Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, Middle East Eye reported on Monday, May 18, citing sources briefed on the matter.
The charges against Smotrich include forced displacement as a crime against humanity and war crime, the transfer of Israel’s own population as a war crime, and persecution and apartheid as crimes against humanity, according to Middle East Eye. The application was filed on April 2.
If approved by the ICC’s pre-trial chamber, the warrant for Smotrich would be the first ever issued by an international court for the crime of apartheid.
The application was filed following repeated Palestinian demands for the prosecutor’s office to take action against Smotrich and Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir. In a letter to the ICC’s deputy prosecutors in March, seen by Middle East Eye, Palestine’s mission to The Hague outlined further evidence of alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity by settlers and Israeli occupation forces, and noted that Israel had failed to prosecute the alleged crimes.
“The urgency to take action now cannot be overstated in any way, with the erasure and the destruction of the Palestinian people, as manifested by an illegal occupant, materializing by the day,” the letter read, according to Middle East Eye.
When asked for comment by Middle East Eye, a spokesperson for the prosecutor’s office did not deny that an application for Smotrich had been filed. “The Office of the Prosecutor of the ICC is unable to comment on questions related to any alleged application for a warrant of arrest,” the spokesperson said, citing court regulations amended in November stipulating that warrant applications are to be classified as secret or under seal.
Israeli media reports over the weekend claiming the prosecutor’s office had filed five applications for Israeli officials are inaccurate, Middle East Eye reported. An evidence review took place on Wednesday last week to examine the possibility of two additional warrant applications, including one for Ben Gvir, but those have not yet been filed, according to the outlet.
Warrant Process Still Ongoing
The arrest warrant application for Smotrich has not been ratified by judges, and a decision could still be months away. At the ICC, seeking and issuing arrest warrants are two distinct stages handled by separate bodies.
The prosecutor’s office conducts the investigation, gathers evidence, and builds the case. When it believes the threshold has been met, it files an application asking for a warrant. That application is then handed to a pre-trial chamber — a panel of three judges — which reviews the material and decides whether there are “reasonable grounds to believe” the person has committed a crime within the court’s jurisdiction. The chamber can issue a warrant on some or all charges, or reject the application entirely.
ICC pre-trial judges typically take several months to rule on warrant applications. Timelines have ranged from roughly one month in the cases of Russian President Vladimir Putin and former Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte to six months for the warrants issued against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then-defence minister Yoav Gallant.
Sanctions Pressure on the Court
If judges issue his arrest warrant, Smotrich will become the third Israeli official sought by the court, after warrants were issued in November 2024 for Netanyahu and Gallant.
Since February 2025, the Trump administration has imposed financial and visa sanctions on the court’s chief prosecutor Karim Khan, his two deputy prosecutors, eight judges, the UN’s special rapporteur on Palestine, and three Palestinian NGOs in connection with the war crimes probe. The US has also threatened sanctions against the court itself, which ICC officials consider a “doomsday scenario.”
The three pre-trial judges who signed off the Netanyahu and Gallant warrants — Reine Alapini-Gansou of Benin, Beti Hohler of Slovenia, and Nicolas Guillou of France — have all been sanctioned by the US. They have continued to carry out their work, including examining the Smotrich application, despite the impact of those sanctions on their daily lives.
ICC judges are currently examining an Israeli challenge to the court’s jurisdiction over the Palestine situation, and a separate Israeli complaint filed on November 17 seeking to disqualify the prosecutor over an alleged lack of impartiality.
International Sanctions on Smotrich
Since June 2025, Smotrich and Ben Gvir have been the target of a coordinated international sanctions campaign over their policies and public statements advocating the extermination and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. Both ministers live in West Bank settlements considered illegal under international law and have championed annexation of the territory and the return of Israeli settlers to Gaza.
In June 2025, the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Norway jointly imposed sanctions on the pair, freezing any assets they held in those countries and barring them from entering. David Lammy, then the UK’s Foreign Secretary, said the ministers had “incited extremist violence and serious abuses of Palestinian human rights.”
In July 2025, Slovenia became the first EU member to declare both ministers persona non grata, and the Netherlands, Belgium, and Spain have imposed their own travel restrictions, with the Dutch ban extending across the 29-country Schengen Area.
On May 11, the EU’s Foreign Affairs Council agreed to sanction settler organisations and Hamas figures, but not Smotrich and Ben Gvir. The two ministers were removed from the list after Germany, Italy, Austria, the Czech Republic, and Hungary made clear they would not support their inclusion.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has urged allies to reverse their sanctions on the two ministers, and the administration has imposed its own sanctions on ICC officials in an effort to halt the court’s Israel-related investigations.
Background
The International Criminal Court, based in The Hague, Netherlands, is a permanent international tribunal established under the Rome Statute in 2002 to prosecute individuals for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Israel is not a member of the Rome Statute, but the ICC accepted Palestine as a member state in 2015, granting the court jurisdiction over crimes committed in Palestinian territories. The ICC opened a formal investigation into the situation in Palestine in 2021. Apartheid is defined under international law as an institutionalised regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over another. No international court has previously issued an arrest warrant specifically on apartheid charges.
What Happens Next
The pre-trial chamber of three judges — the same panel that examined the Netanyahu and Gallant applications — will now review the prosecution’s evidence and determine whether there are reasonable grounds to issue an arrest warrant against Smotrich. The panel can accept, partially accept, or reject the application. Middle East Eye reported that an evidence review was already underway last week regarding a potential second application involving Ben Gvir, though no filing has been confirmed. Should the Smotrich warrant be issued, states that are parties to the Rome Statute would be formally obligated to arrest him if he enters their territory. The ICC’s deputy prosecutors, who are managing the office in the absence of chief prosecutor Karim Khan, have indicated no public timeline for the chamber’s decision.
