WARSAW (AFP) – Poland's president has asked his government not to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he attends commemorations of the liberation of Auschwitz later this month, his office said on Thursday.
In November, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the Gaza war, angering Israel and its allies.
Poland, which is party to the ICC, must arrest Netanyahu if he attends a ceremony marking 80 years since the Red Army liberated Nazi Germany's Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.
Polish President Andrzej Duda said that “every Israeli, every official of that country should be able to take part in this unique event,” his aide Malgorzata Paprocka told the X show. Ta.
Duda had written to Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk “to allow Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to participate in the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz if he expresses his desire.''
Tusk has not yet commented on the president's position.
The ICC has issued arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant, and Mohamed Deif, the Hamas military commander whom Israeli forces say were killed in Gaza.
The court found that there were “reasonable persons” who believed that Prime Minister Netanyahu and Mr. Gallant were “criminally responsible” for the war crime of starvation as a means of war, as well as crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhuman acts. He said he had found a basis for this.
A ceremony commemorating the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau is scheduled for January 27 and will be attended by international delegations.
The Auschwitz museum previously told AFP it was up to each country to choose its representatives for the event.
Nazi Germany built death camps after invading Poland in World War II.
The camp is a symbol of Nazi Germany's genocide of six million European Jews, one million of whom died on the spot between 1940 and 1945, along with more than 100,000 non-Jews. did.
