THE HAGUE, November 21. /TASS/. The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Hamas’ military wing commander Mohammed Deif, it said in a statement.

The Israel Defense Forces said in August he had been killed in an Israeli strike on Gaza on July 13.

The ICC issued the warrant alongside two other arrest warrants, for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, over presumed war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Palestine.

On May 20, ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan demanded arrest warrants for three Hamas leaders: the head of the political bureau, Ismail Haniyeh; the leader of Gaza militants, Yahya Sinwar; and Deif. All of them were later killed by Israeli forces.

Haniyeh was killed in a missile attack in Tehran following the inauguration of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian overnight into July 31. Sinwar was killed in an Israeli military operation in the Palestinian enclave on October 16.

The situation in the Middle East sharply escalated following an incursion of Hamas militants from the Gaza into Israel on October 7, accompanied by killings of residents of Israeli settlements near the border and taking hostages, including children, women and elderly people. In response, Israel started an operation in the enclave to dismantle Hamas’ military and political organization and free all of the abducted people.

A total of 44,000 Palestinians have been killed and 104,000 other injured in Gaza since the military operation began last October, according to the Gazan Health Ministry.