ISRAELI Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is due to travel to Hungary despite an International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant for suspected war crimes.
Netanyahu is set to meet with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban during his four-day visit from April 2, his office announced on Sunday.
French newspaper Le Monde reports that Netanyahu’s office confirmed the visit on Sunday, where he will meet with Orban and other senior Hungarian figures before returning to Israel on April 6.
Orban condemned the ICC decision as “shameful” and extended an invitation to Netanyahu to visit the country.
It comes as the Israeli military issued sweeping evacuation orders covering most of Rafah, indicating there could be another major ground operation in the city.
Israel ended its ceasefire with the Hamas militant group and renewed its air and ground war earlier this month.
The ICC issued arrest warrants in November for Netanyahu and former Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in the Gaza Strip.
Hungary is one of the signatories of the Rome Statute, the international treaty that formed the ICC IN 1999, ratifying it two years later during Orban’s first term.
At the beginning of March Israel cut off all supplies of food, fuel, medicine and humanitarian aid to the territory’s roughly two million Palestinians to pressure Hamas to accept changes to the truce agreement.
The Rafah evacuation orders appeared to cover nearly all of the city and nearby areas.
The military ordered Palestinians to head to Muwasi, a sprawl of squalid tent camps along the coast.
The orders came during Eid al-Fitr, a normally festive Muslim holiday marking the end of the fasting month of Ramadan.
Israel launched a major operation in Rafah, on the border with Egypt, last May, leaving large parts of it in ruins.
The military seized a strategic corridor along the border as well as the Rafah crossing with Egypt, Gaza’s only gateway to the outside world that was not controlled by Israel.
Israel was supposed to withdraw from the corridor under the ceasefire it signed with Hamas in January under US pressure, but it later refused to, citing the need to prevent weapons smuggling.
Israel has vowed to intensify its military operations until Hamas releases the remaining 59 hostages it holds - 24 of whom are believed to be alive.
The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel on October 7 2023, killing some 1200 people, mostly civilians.
The militants took another 251 people hostage, most of whom have since been released in ceasefires or other deals.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 50,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many were civilians or combatants.
At its height, the war had displaced some 90% of Gaza’s population, with many fleeing multiple times.
Large areas of Gaza have been completely destroyed, and it is unclear how or when anything will be rebuilt.
