The office of the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court last month filed a secret arrest warrant application for Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, sources briefed on the matter told Middle East Eye.
Israeli media reports over the weekend claiming the prosecutor’s office had filed five applications for Israeli officials are inaccurate, MEE understands.
An evidence review took place on Wednesday last week to examine the possibility of two more warrant applications, including one for national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir, but they have yet to be filed.
MEE understands that 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.
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.




President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukrainian long-range strikes have sharply reduced Russian oil refining in recent months, forcing Moscow to shut down oil wells and pushing its state budget deeper into deficit.
A jury in California took less than two hours to decide that Elon Musk waited too long to file a lawsuit against his one-time business partner Sam Altman over the direction he's steered the artificial intelligence company OpenAI since the two had a falling out nearly a decade ago.
The Trump administration has announced a plan to kill Biden-era drinking water limits on four Pfas “forever chemicals”, and to delay the implementation of standards for two other compounds.
When Billie Jean King left college in 1964, she had a purpose. Within a few years, she had become the top-ranked tennis professional in the world. Over a trailblazing career, she won 39 championships, a Presidential Medal of Freedom and a congressional Medal of Honor – all while pushing publicly for gender and pay equality.
Former LAPD Detective Mark Fuhrman, who gained infamy when his past racist comments came to light during Hall of Fame football star O.J Simpson’s murder trial, has died. He was 74.
The Pentagon is pushing back on allegations that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is politicizing the military with his planned Monday appearance in Kentucky to campaign for the man who is challenging Rep. Thomas Massie (Ky.) in Tuesday’s Republican primary.





























