While the ICC arrest warrants target only Netanyahu and Gallant, some are worried about the implications for the Israel Defense Forces and its soldiers.
Conscription is mandatory for most Jewish Israelis and some 300,000 reservists have been called up because of the war, on top of the estimated 170,000 active-duty soldiers.
The right-wing Israeli legal organization Shurat HaDin has warned about the arrest warrants “creating a dangerous precedent for the ICC to target other democratic armies and leaders.”
The group has long warned about the ICC possibly opening a criminal investigation against Israeli soldiers.
Legal action at the ICC against Israeli soldiers, it said on its website, would “carry devastating effects” on Israel, and cause immediate personal risk to individuals “whose only blame is for serving their country and fighting terror.”
Refusals by potential recruits and reservists to serve are rare in Israel, but there are signs that they have been increasing amid the global outrage over the toll of the war in Gaza.
Taking an unusually public stance, a group of more than 130 Israeli reservists signed an open letter to Netanyahu and Gallant last month, stating that they refuse to serve unless a deal is signed to end the war and bring back the hostages, saying that for some of them “the red line has already been crossed.”
