The militant Palestinian organization Hamas has criticised the request for arrest warrants against several of its leaders by the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC). “His decision compares the victim to an executioner and encourages the [Israeli] occupation to continue the war of extermination,” the group said in a statement broadcast by the Hamas-affiliated TV station Al-Aqsa. The Hague-based court’s chief prosecutor Karim Khan submitted requests for arrest warrants for: Yehya al-Sinwar, the leader of Hamas in Gaza; Diab Ibrahim al-Masri, the head of the group’s militar…