Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fired back at the International Criminal Court, accusing its judges of holding “antisemitic hatred toward Israel” after they issued a warrant for his arrest over alleged war crimes in Gaza.

Netanyahu personally rebuked ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan on Wednesday.

“The decision was made by a corrupt chief prosecutor attempting to save himself from serious allegations of sexual harassment, and by biased judges driven by antisemitic hatred toward Israel,” Mr Netanyahu said, according to The Telegraph.

Netanyahu is the first leader of a modern Western democracy to be wanted by the world’s highest criminal court. 

The tribunal in The Hague has also accused his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant of war crimes.

US officials slammed the ICC’s decision as a “dangerous” act that undermines the Jewish state’s right to defend itself.

“The United States fundamentally rejects the Court’s decision to issue arrest warrants for senior Israeli officials. We remain deeply concerned by the Prosecutor’s rush to seek arrest warrants and the troubling process errors that led to this decision,” said a White House National Security Council spokesperson. 

The US is not a member of the ICC and the court has never arrested anyone on US soil in the past. Israel also is not a member.

The US criticism was joined by Argentina and Hungary, with Prime Minister Viktor Orban slamming the ICC’s decision as “outrageously brazen.” 

In defiance of the ICC, Obran, who also slammed the ICC’s warrant against Russian President Vladimir Putin, invited Netanyahu to Hungary. 

“There is no choice here, we have to defy this decision,” Orban said in a statement. “I will guarantee Mr Netanyahu, if he comes, that the judgment will have no effect in Hungary and that we will not follow its terms.” 

Under the ICC’s ruling, Netanyahu and Gallant would risk arrest if they travel to any of the 124 nations that are a member of the court, including the European Union and UK. 

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s office told reporters that the UK would always comply with its legal obligations to international law, but stopped short of confirming if it would try to arrest Netanayhu if he steps foot on British soil. 

Ireland, however, was among the list of nations that agreed to follow the ICC’s protocol and arrest Netanyahu. 

“We support international courts and we apply their warrants,” Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris told local RTE broadcaster on Friday. 

European Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell said the court’s ruling was a legal matter, not a political one, calling on member nations to respect and uphold the arrest warrants.

Along with the Israeli leaders, the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Mohammed Deif, the supreme commander of Hamas’s military wing who orchestrated the Oct. 7 terrorist attack that killed more than 1,200 people and started the war.

Deif is the only high-ranking Hamas member who helped plot the attack whose death has yet to be confirmed by the terror group, with Israel claiming to have killed him in an airstrike on July 13.