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May 22, 2024 Israel-Hamas war

May 23, 2024 Published by
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson meets with reporters following a Republican strategy session, at the Capitol in Washington D.C., on May 22.
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson meets with reporters following a Republican strategy session, at the Capitol in Washington D.C., on May 22. J. Scott Applewhite/AP

US House Speaker Mike Johnson is set to speak with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday, days after the International Criminal Court announced it is seeking an arrest warrant for the Israeli leader.

Ahead of the call, Johnson said he spoke with Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and agreed to sign the invitation for Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress. 

Johnson said House Republican leaders are getting down to the “fine points” on how to respond to the ICC. Johnson confirmed Monday they were looking at sanctions in response to the decision.

“Very clearly, this is a great threat to the international community and to our allies, and to us, ultimately, as explained earlier, so we’re getting down to the fine points of that. And hopefully it will be a bipartisan bill and that everybody will be able to stand together on that. I think we need to start to send a strong message to the world that this is completely, wildly inappropriate, and we’re not going to stand for it,” Johnson said.

Meanwhile, GOP Rep. Michael McCaul, the House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman, said he plans to speak with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday about legislation to sanction the international tribunal.

Remember: The ICC is seeking arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as three Hamas leaders: Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri, the leader of the Al Qassem Brigades who is better known as Mohammed Deif, and Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’ political leader.

CNN’s Morgan Rimmer, Ivana Kottasová, Madalena Araujo and Lauren Fox contributed to this post.

This post has been updated with additional information.

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