Poland to let Netanyahu visit Auschwitz

Warsaw will allow the trip, although it is bound by treaty to arrest the Israeli PM if he sets foot on Polish soil

The Polish government will allow Benjamin Netanyahu to attend a commemoration ceremony at the former Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp later this month, despite being bound by an International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant to arrest the Israeli prime minister.

The ICC issued warrants for the arrest of Netanyahu and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, in November, accusing the two officials of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

As a signatory to the Rome Statute, Poland is bound to arrest both men on its territory. Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Wladyslaw Bartoszewski said last month that the warrant would be enforced if Netanyahu attended a ceremony marking the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the camp.

However, Polish President Andrzej Duda said on Thursday that he had asked Tusk to ensure that Netanyahu could attend the ceremony if he wished. 

“Every person from Israel, every official from that country, should be able to take part in this unique event,” Duda’s aide Malgorzata Paprocka wrote on X. 

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On Thursday evening, Tusk’s office had announced that Netanyahu would not be arrested if he traveled to Auschwitz.

“The Polish government treats the safe participation of the leaders of Israel in the commemorations on January 27, 2025, as part of paying tribute to the Jewish nation, millions of whose daughters and sons became victims of the Holocaust carried out by the Third Reich,” the statement read. 

Without the active participation of Rome Treaty signatories, the ICC lacks any means of enforcing its warrants. Israel, like the US, Russia, and China, does not recognize the Hague-based court.

It is unclear whether Netanyahu will attend the ceremony. “We’ll look into [coming] if we receive an invitation. For now, it’s not in the program,” a senior aide to the Israeli PM told the Times of Israel on Thursday. “First of all, they’ll have to solve the ICC issue,” the official added. 

Auschwitz-Birkenau was a Nazi concentration and extermination camp in occupied Poland during World War II. Roughly 1.1 million Jews, Poles, Gypsies, and Soviet prisoners of war perished at the complex between 1940 and its liberation by the Red Army in 1945.