BUDAPEST, Hungary — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived in Hungary’s capital early Thursday to red carpet treatment despite a warrant for his arrest issued by the world’s top war crimes court.
Hungary’s government, led by its populist prime minister and Netanyahu ally, Viktor Orbán, used the occasion of the Israeli leader’s visit to announce it will begin the procedure of withdrawing from the international tribunal that issued the warrant, the International Criminal Court.
Just as Netanyahu met with Orbán for a welcome with full military honors in Budapest’s Castle District, Orbán’s chief of staff, Gergely Gulyás, wrote in a brief statement that “the government will initiate the withdrawal procedure on Thursday, in accordance with the constitutional and international legal framework.”
At the welcoming ceremony kicking off Netanyahu’s visit, only his second foreign trip since the ICC in November, he stood alongside Orbán as a military band played and an elaborate processions of soldiers on horseback and carrying swords and bayoneted rifles marched by.
The two leaders were set to hold talks later on Thursday, and Netanyahu was also to meet Hungarian President Tamás Sulyok in the Presidential Palace.
The Israeli leader will spend several days in Hungary before departing on Sunday.
The ICC, based in The Hague, Netherlands, said when issuing its warrant there was reason to believe Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant used “starvation as a method of warfare” by restricting humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, and intentionally targeted civilians in Israel’s campaign against Hamas — charges that Israeli officials deny.
After the ICC issued the warrant in November, Orbán accused the world’s only permanent global tribunal for war crimes and genocide of “interfering in an ongoing conflict for political purposes,” saying the move undermined international law and escalated tensions.
His invitation to Netanyahu was in open defiance of the court’s ruling. in 2001 during Orbán’s first term as prime minister.
Currently, all countries in the 27-member European Union including Hungary are signatories, and all members are required to detain suspects facing a warrant if they set foot on their soil. But the court relies on member countries to enforce that.
Reacting to Hungary’s decision to leave the court, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar thanked Orbán for the move, writing on X: “I commend Hungary’s important decision to withdraw from the ICC.”
“The so-called ‘International Criminal Court’ lost its moral authority after trampling the fundamental principles of international law in its zest for harming Israel’s right to self-defense,” Saar wrote. “Thank you Hungary for your clear and strong moral stance alongside Israel and the principles of justice and sovereignty!”
Netanyahu in February in Washington, where Trump suggested that displaced Palestinians in Gaza be permanently resettled outside the war-torn territory and proposed the U.S. take “ownership” in redeveloping the area into “the Riviera of the Middle East.”
Neither the United States or Israel are signatories to the ICC. Trump in February issued sanctions against the court for its investigations into Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza which has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, many of them children.
The ICC has criticized Hungary’s decision to defy its warrant for Netanyahu. The court’s spokesperson, Fadi El Abdallah, earlier said it’s not for parties to the ICC “to unilaterally determine the soundness of the Court’s legal decisions.” On Thursday, he said the court “recalls that Hungary remains under a duty to cooperate with the ICC.”
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