Iran’s Khamenei says death sentence should be issued for Netanyahu, not arrest warrant
A handout picture provided by the office of Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei shows him addressing the crowd during a meeting with members of the Basij paramilitary force in Tehran on November 25, 2024. (KHAMENEI.IR/AFP)
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei says that death sentences should be issued for Israel’s leaders, not arrest warrants, after the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant last week over the war in Gaza.
In comments delivered to the Basij paramilitary force, a division within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and reported on by Iran’s Tasnim news agency, Khamenei vows that “the enemy [Israel] will not win in Gaza and Lebanon.”
“Bombing people’s houses in Gaza and Lebanon is not a victory,” he says, “The fools should not think that just because they bomb people’s homes, hospitals and communities, they have won. No, nobody considers this a victory.”
“What the Zionists did was a war crime,” he continues. “They have issued an arrest warrant, this isn’t enough — a death sentence must be issued for Netanyahu. A death sentence should be issued for these criminal leaders.”
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