Tel Aviv, May 21 (IANS/DPA): Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that the decision by the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor to apply for arrest warrants against Israeli leaders will bring shame down on the court and turn it into a farce.

"As the Prime Minister of Israel, I reject with disgust the prosecutor's comparison between democratic Israel and the mass murderers of Hamas. This is a complete distortion of reality," Netanyahu said on Monday.

"The outrageous decision by the ICC prosecutor, Karim Khan, to seek arrest warrants against the democratically-elected leaders of Israel is a moral outrage of historic proportions. It will cast an everlasting mark of shame on the international court," the Israeli Prime Minister said in a video message posted on X.

Israel was waging a just war against Hamas, Netanyahu said, describing Hamas as a "genocidal terrorist organisation".

He rejected any moral equivalence between Hamas and Israeli leaders as "twisted and false".

The warrant application was a "travesty of justice and a disgrace," he said.

It was an attempt to deny Israel the basic right of self-defence and would fail.

Netanyahu accused Khan of pouring fuel on the fires of "anti-Semitism" and said his abuse of his authority would turn the ICC into "nothing more than a farce".