THE Chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court said on Tuesday that he was seeking “urgent” arrest warrants on both the Israeli and Palestinian sides in the war in Gaza.

Karim Khan said that it was time to press ahead with arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Yoav Gallant, the country’s defence minister, as well as Hamas’s leader Yahya Sinwar and military commander Mohammed Deif “with utmost urgency.”

He said the arrest warrants are “necessary to ensure that they do not obstruct or endanger the investigation or court proceedings, prevent the continuing commission of the crimes alleged and/or the commission of other Rome Statute crimes.”

Mr Khan had first sought the arrest warrants in May, accusing the Israeli and Hamas leaders of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity. 

But the case has been beset by various procedural delays, including the court’s decision to let Britain submit observations on the court’s jurisdiction over the case.

The British government eventually decided not to file those observations. The dithering by the British has delayed the whole process.

Mr Khan said he was withdrawing the arrest warrant for the late Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh, following the politician’s assassination in Tehran in August. 

The prosecutor also said that he would withdraw the request for Mr Deif, who Israel claimed to have killed earlier this year, if his death is confirmed.

Mr Netanyahu’s office dismissed the comparison between Hamas and Israeli leaders as “pure anti-semitism” and a “moral disgrace of the highest order.”

“Unfortunately, we have seen from the beginning that the proceedings in The Hague are politically biased and have no professional legal basis whatsoever,” the statement said.

Meanwhile, the Israelis have continued to mount deadly raids across both the occupied West Bank and Gaza.

Three teenagers have been arrested following separate raids in Bethlehem governorate in the occupied West Bank, the Wafa news agency said.

Two were arrested in the town of Tuqu, while another was arrested in the town of Janatah, according to Wafa.

Two other Palestinians were arrested during raids on Beit Rima and the village of Rantis near Ramallah.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society reports that Israeli forces have detained five members of its ambulance crew in the West Bank’s Tulkarem camp.

Wafa reports that Tubas is still under siege from the Israelis with all entrances to the city remaining closed and the Turkish Governmental Hospital still locked down.

An Israeli air attack on the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, killed at least four people, the Palestinian Information Centre reports.