“But it remains limited and symbolic if it is not supported by all means by all countries around the world”, the group’s political bureau member Bassem Naim said.
Asked by AFP about the Deif warrant, a Hamas official who wished to remain anonymous said there was “no comparison between the criminal occupier and the victim”.
The Gaza war, triggered by Hamas’s Oct 7, 2023 attack on Israel, resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Some 250 hostages were seized during the attack, with 97 still held captive in Gaza including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 44,056 people in more than 13 months of war, most of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip’s health ministry which the United Nations considers reliable.
