Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide said that if the International Criminal Court issues an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Oslo is committed to arresting him if he visits it.

According to the statements quoted from him on Tuesday, Eide explained that “it is the court that decides to issue the arrest warrant. If this happens, all countries that signed the Rome Statute establishing the court must respond to that.”

Israeli media paid attention to these statements, as the Israeli Broadcasting Corporation said that Norway is “the first European country to threaten to arrest Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.”

For its part, Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper reported that this threat is ineffective because neither the Prime Minister nor the Defense Minister will visit Norway soon.

The newspaper pointed out that Norway, along with Spain and Ireland, are among the countries most hostile to Israel in Europe at the present time, and relations between them and Tel Aviv have deteriorated to an unprecedented level.

The Israeli newspaper compared Norway to Britain, which criticized the decision of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan.

Arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant

Khan announced, in a televised statement, on Monday, that he had requested the issuance of arrest warrants against the Israeli Prime Minister, the Defense Minister, and three leaders of the Hamas movement.

He said that regardless of any military objectives Israel wanted to achieve in Gaza, the court's prosecution believed that its means of achieving them "namely, intentionally causing death, starvation, great suffering and serious injury to the bodies or health of the civilian population, were criminal acts."