Rabat – Shortly after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived at the Budapest Airport in the early hours of Thursday, April 3, Hungary announced that it would begin the process of withdrawing from the International Criminal Court (ICC).
“Hungary will withdraw from the ICC,” said Gergely Gulyas, prime minister Viktor Orban’s chief of staff. “The government will initiate the withdrawal procedure on Thursday in accordance with the constitutional and international framework.”
In November 2024, The ICC had issued arrest warrants earlier for Netanyahu and his former Minister of Defence, Yoav Gallant, for crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in Gaza from October 2023 to May 2024.
The timing is anything but coincidental.
As a member of the ICC, like all 27 European Union (EU) countries, Hungary is obliged under international law to arrest and surrender individuals subject to ICC warrants. However, if Hungary no longer holds membership, they are not obliged by these rules.
Prime minister Orban, a right-wing nationalist who often opposes EU policies, had dismissed the warrant and invited Netanyahu anyway on a four day visit, during which Israel will reportedly push for Hungarian support for Trump’s plan to ethnically cleanse Gaza.
Multiple human right organizations have urged Hungary to uphold international law by arresting and extraditing Netanyahu to the ICC following reports of his visit to Hungary.
“Prime Minister Netanyahu is an alleged war criminal, who is accused of using starvation as a method of warfare, intentionally attacking civilians and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts,” said Erika Guevara-Rosas, head of Global Research, Advocacy and Policy of Amnesty International, in a recent statement on the incident.
Rosas called on Hungary to take action against Netanyahu, stressing that “any trip he takes to an ICC member state that does not end in his arrest would embolden Israel to commit further crimes against Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”
This marks Netanyahu’s second foreign trip since the ICC issued the arrest warrants against him. His first trip was to the United States – a country which withdrew ICC membership in 2002 – earlier in February to meet US President Donald Trump, who at the time announced his plan to “take over” Gaza.
Even before the arrest warrants Netanyahu has visited Washington multiple times since October 7, met with a worrying contrast of applause from both out-of-touch and sold-out Congress members alongside outraged Americans protesting against the war criminal in the streets.
