Netanyahu becomes a wanted man, 1,000 days of war in Ukraine, G20 summit

The World This Week

This week saw the International Criminal Court issue arrest warrants for Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence minister Yoav Gallant. They are accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, alongside the Hamas commander Mohammed Deif.

The news of the warrants was met with a furious reaction from the Israeli prime minister’s office, calling it biased, absurd and anti-Semitic. The impact of the warrants will in part depend on whether ICC members decide to enforce them.

This week also saw the rules of the conflict change in Ukraine. After months of reluctance, US media reported that President Joe Biden had relented and given permission for Kyiv to use American long-range missiles and strike targets deep in Russian territory. Britain and France appear to have followed suit, with reports that their jointly-made Storm Shadow / Scalp cruise missiles were used on Wednesday. Russia responded, with President Vladimir Putin saying it used a new type of intercontinental ballistic missile against Ukraine.

And in the midst of war in Europe and the Middle East, it has been a week where world leaders met in Latin America to focus on other threats to the planet. Global warming and world hunger were the focus of formal talks at the G20 summit in Brazil. But it was in the corridors and briefing rooms that the dominant issue was made clear by diplomats: preparations to deal with the man who wasn’t there, yet who's impossible to ignore. Trump 2.0 is on the horizon, and talk is of transactional geopolitics, replacing consensus agreements.