(3 Apr 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Budapest, Hungary – 3 April 2025
1. Hungarian Leader Viktor Orbán arriving, receiving salute from troops
2. Various of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s convoy arriving
3. Orbán greeting Netanyahu
4. Various of Orbán and Netanyahu inspecting honour guard
5. Various of leaders standing beneath flags listening to national anthems
6. Soldiers marching past leaders
7. Mounted troops passing leaders
8. Netanyahu greeting Hungarian officials
9. Netanyahu and Orbán posing for photos
10. Delegations leaving
STORYLINE:
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 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 issued the warrant against him in November, he stood alongside Orbán as a military band played and processions of soldiers on horseback and carrying swords and bayoneted rifles passed by.
The two leaders were set to hold talks later on Thursday. Netanyahu 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.
Member countries of the ICC, such as Hungary, are required to arrest suspects facing a warrant if they set foot on their soil, but the court has no way to enforce that and relies on states to comply.
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.
Hungary joined the court in 2001 during Orbán’s first term as prime minister.
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