1 US/ISRAEL
Biden attacks ICC call for Netanyahu arrest warrant
Joe Biden attacked as “outrageous” an application by the international criminal court for warrants seeking the arrest of the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, along with senior members of Hamas, for actions carried out in Gaza.
The US president sided with Israel after the ICC’s prosecutor, Karim Khan, announced he was pursuing arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, the Israeli defence minister. Khan is also pursuing the arrests of three leading Hamas figures, Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri – better known as Mohammed Deif – and Ismail Haniyeh, over Hamas’s attack on Israel on 7 October last year.
Biden accused the ICC of drawing a false moral equivalence between the country and Hamas, a militant Islamist group that has run Gaza since 2006.
“The … application for arrest warrants against Israeli leaders is outrageous,” Biden said in the statement. “And let me be clear … there is no equivalence – none – between Israel and Hamas.”
Biden said that he was working to bring the region together and find a two-state solution.
The Guardian View Page 49 →
2 UNITED STATES
Women accuse magician of sexual misconduct
The celebrated American magician David Copperfield has been accused by 16 women of engaging in sexual misconduct and inappropriate behaviour over the span of four decades, from the late 1980s to 2014, following an investigation by Guardian US.
The allegations against him – denied by the illusionist – include claims that he drugged three
