Israeli far-right minister orders Arab village evicted after saying ICC is seeking his arrest
“I promise all our enemies, this is only the beginning,” Bezalel Smotrich said
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich holds a press conference at the Finance Ministry in Jerusalem, May 19, 2026. Photo by Yonatan Sindel/Flash90
(JTA) — Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s finance minister and a minister in the Ministry of Defense, said on Tuesday that the International Criminal Court is seeking a warrant for his arrest and announced he would retaliate by clearing Palestinians from a herding village in the West Bank.
Smotrich said in a press conference that the ICC prosecutor “submitted a secret request for an international arrest warrant” against him. Calling the court “antisemitic,” he said the move was a “declaration of war” and he would respond by evacuating Khan al-Ahmar, a Palestinian Bedouin village in the West Bank.
“I promise all our enemies, this is only the beginning,” Smotrich said.
Smotrich has authority over construction and demolition in the portion of the West Bank where Khan al-Ahmar is located through his role in the Ministry of Defense. The head of the far-right Religious Zionist Party, Smotrich lives in a West Bank settlement and has been banned and sanctioned by several countries who say he has incited settler violence against Palestinians.
The court told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that it was unable to comment on Smotrich’s claim because its applications for arrest warrants are sealed. Once warrants are confirmed, judges can decide whether or not to publicize them.
Members of the court could have various motivations for choosing to publicize arrest warrants or keep them secret, said Eran Shamir-Borer, director of the Israel Democracy Institute’s Center for Security and Democracy.
“A reason why the court may decide to render the existence of arrest warrants public could be to interrupt ongoing criminal conduct or deter other crimes,” said Shamir-Borer. “A reason to keep the arrest warrant secret could be for the sake of effectiveness of its enforcement, so the suspect does not evade arrest.”
In November 2024, the ICC publicly announced arrest warrants against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Smotrich did not specify who had informed him of the request for a warrant or the ICC’s reasoning. His spokesperson declined to comment on the details of a potential warrant to JTA.
Both the ICC and Smotrich’s settler movement have long had their eyes on Khan al-Ahmar, a village near Jerusalem that is home to about 200 Bedouins.
The village was subject to a protracted legal battle for years, as settlers backed by senior politicians petitioned for its demolition because it lacked the proper building permits. In 2018, Israel’s Supreme Court ruled that Khan al-Ahmar could be razed. (The community moved to its current location after being expelled by the Israeli military from the Negev desert in the 1950s, according to the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem.)
But the demolition did not move forward, partly because of intense international pressure. In response to the Supreme Court decision, the ICC’s then-prosecutor warned that destroying Khan al-Ahmar could amount to a war crime.
The governments of France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom jointly urged against the village’s demolition, saying that its location had “strategic importance for preserving the contiguity of a future Palestinian state.” Khan al-Ahmar’s support from Europe includes a school built in 2009 with the help of an Italian NGO.
Friends of Jahalin, a local volunteer group advocating for the Jahalin Bedouin tribe that encompasses the residents of Khan al-Ahmar, suggested that Smotrich was making a play for his pro-settlement political base as Israel approaches elections, which must be held by October.
“In his pathetic attempts to pass the voting threshold, Minister Smotrich finds himself invited to The Hague, but along the way he is dragging the entire country into an international moral disaster,” Friends of Jahalin said in a statement.
Pro-peace groups in Israel and the United States have also condemned Smotrich’s announcement.
The Israeli organization Peace Now said in a statement, “Minister Smotrich seeks to take revenge on The Hague and the international community at the expense of one of the most vulnerable communities, which for years has struggled simply for the right to live on the small piece of land in its possession.”
J Street, a liberal Zionist U.S. group, said on X that “using Khan al-Ahmar as a political pawn is cruel, extremist and dangerous.”
The European Union last week announced sanctions against Israeli settlers over violence against Palestinians in the West Bank. Europe could be poised to take a stronger tone against Israeli policies after Viktor Orban, Hungary’s former president and Netanyahu’s close ally, was unseated in April.
The Trump administration, which has sanctioned at least 11 ICC judges and prosecutors involved in investigating U.S. or Israeli nationals, has not yet responded to Smotrich’s claims. In 2024, under the Biden administration, the United States rejected the ICC arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant. That was possible because, like Israel, the United States is not a party to the treaty that created the ICC and does not recognize its jurisdiction. Smotrich visited the United States and met with senior Trump administration officials last year.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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