Iran’s supreme leader has claimed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should be ‘sentenced to de@th’ for alleged war crimes committed in the ongoing wars in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei made the remarks during an event on Monday in which he spoke to members of the Basij, the all-volunteer arm of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard.
Khamenei added that the International Criminal Court’s decision to issue an arrest warrant for Netanyahu and Israel’s former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant was ‘not enough.’
‘What the Zionist regime did in Gaza and Lebanon is not a victory, it is a war crime. Now they have issued a warrant for their arrest. This is not enough!’ Khamenei said, according to remarks published by the state-run IRNA news agency.
‘Netanyahu and the criminal leaders of this regime must be sentenced to death.’
The International Criminal Court at the Hague does not issue de@th sentences.
Khamenei also insisted those in Iran’s self-described ‘Axis of Resistance,’ like the Palestinian militant group Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, would be stronger after the war.
‘The idiots should not think that bombing houses and hospitals in Gaza and Lebanon is a victory,’ he said. ‘The enemy has not become a winner in Gaza and Lebanon, and it will not be winner.’
It comes as the Israeli ambassador to Washington claimed a ceasefire deal to end fighting between Israel and the Lebanon-based Hezbollah could be reached ‘within days.’
Ambassador Mike Herzog told Israeli Army Radio on Monday that there remained ‘points to finalize’ and that any deal required agreement from the government. But he said ‘we are close to a deal’ and that ‘it can happen within days.’