United States President, Joe Biden, has denounced as ‘outrageous’ an application by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for warrants seeking the arrest of the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, along with senior members of Hamas, for actions carried out in Gaza.

“The ICC prosecutor’s application for arrest warrants against Israeli leaders is outrageous. And let me be clear: whatever this prosecutor might imply, there is no equivalence — none — between Israel and Hamas,” Mr Biden said in a statement on Monday.

The U.S. president’s action came after the ICC’s prosecutor, Karim Khan, announced he was pursuing arrest warrants for Mr Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, the Israeli defence minister.

Mr Khan is also pursuing the arrests of three leading Hamas figures, Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri and Ismail Haniyeh, over Hamas’s deadly attack on Israel on 7 October last year and suspicion of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

However, Mr Biden’s comments were echoed by the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, who said the U.S. government “fundamentally rejects” the decision to seek the arrests of Israeli officials and warned that it could jeopardise efforts to reach a ceasefire.

Mr Blinken also accused the ICC of overstepping its authority, noting that the U.S. has been clear since well before the current conflict.

“The ICC was established by its state parties as a court of limited jurisdiction. Those limits are rooted in principles of complementarity, which do not appear to have been applied here amid the prosecutor’s rush to seek these arrest warrants rather than allowing the Israeli legal system a full and timely opportunity to proceed,” he said.

The ICC’s move follows a separate case currently being heard by a different court, the International Court of Justice, of accusations which were brought by South Africa – that Israel is committing genocide in its response to last October’s attack.

However, Israel had denied the allegation.

Mr Biden’s administration’s chorus of support for Israel follows weeks of tensions between the two allies over the latter’s plans for an offensive against the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where more than 1 million Palestinians are believed to be seeking shelter.

Earlier this month, the U.S. president had vowed that he would withhold U.S. weapons from Israel if Mr Netanyahu ordered a major invasion of the city.

Scores of Palestinians, the majority of whom are women and children, have been killed since Israel launched its military offensive in response to last October’s “murderous Hamas assault.”