The International Criminal Court (ICC) on Thursday ordered the pretrial chamber to reconsider Israel’s objections to the exercise of the ICC’s jurisdiction regarding arrest warrants issued against Israeli officials.

Israel argued in the present case that the pretrial chamber prematurely “rejected the jurisdictional challenge on procedural grounds, without substantive scrutiny of Israel’s serious objections to the court’s lack of jurisdiction with respect to the situation.” The appeals chamber found for Israel, stating that “the Pre-Trial Chamber committed an error of law by failing to sufficiently direct itself to the relevant submissions brought before it in respect of the particular legal basis underpinning the challenge to the jurisdiction of the Court.” Accordingly, the ICC reversed the impugned decision and remitted the matter to the pretrial chamber.

In November 2024, the pretrial chamber rejected Israel’s challenge to the ICC’s jurisdiction over Occupied Palestinian Territories. Subsequently, the court issued arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, under articles 18 and 19 of the ICC’s founding statute, the Rome Statute. The legal validity of these arrest warrants has been questioned by Israeli authorities.

As of the time of writing, the arrest warrants are still valid against Netanyahu and Gallant and were explicitly not suspended by the judgement of the appeals court. However, if the pretrial chamber decides that the ICC does not have jurisdiction, the arrest warrants issued against Netanyahu and Gallant will no longer be valid.

The ICC’s jurisdiction to prosecute international crimes is limited to the citizens of or crimes that occur on the territories countries that are signatories to the Rome Statute. Although Palestine is a signatory state to the Rome Statute, Israel is not. As such, legal controversy has arisen as to whether the international crimes committed occurred on Palestinian territory or not, as this is determinative of whether cases can be brought by the ICC against Israel. In 2021, the ICC’s pretrial chamber confirmed that Palestine extended to “the territories occupied by Israel since 1967, namely Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.”