WARSAW (Reuters) – Poland’s president called on the government to ensure that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu can choose to attend the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi death camp Auschwitz without fear of arrest under an ICC warrant. , a senior adviser said on Thursday.
The International Criminal Court in November issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former defense minister, as well as a Hamas leader, Ibrahim Al-Masri, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group.
Israel has condemned the arrest warrants against Netanyahu and former defense chief Yoav Gallant, saying they have acted in self-defense in its air and ground war in Gaza sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 cross-border attack on Israel.
On Wednesday, Bloomberg reported that President Andrzej Duda had written to Prime Minister Donald Tusk saying that Poland should ensure that Netanyahu can attend the Auschwitz commemoration on January 27 “without hindrance,” given the exceptional nature of the event.
Malgorzata Paprocka, head of Duda’s office, confirmed to state news agency PAP on Thursday that such a letter had been sent.
“In the president’s opinion, there is one issue: precisely because this is the Auschwitz camp, every person in Israel, every representative of the authorities of this country must have the opportunity to participate in this exceptional event.”
He said Duda was waiting for a response. Tusk’s office did not respond to an emailed request for comment.
Duda is a right-wing nationalist who has had tense relations with Tusk’s centrist, pro-European government since taking office in December 2023.
Asked by state news channel TVP Info whether Netanyahu could count on a guarantee from Poland that he would not be arrested, Deputy Prime Minister Krzysztof Gawkowski said: “There is no such issue, because Mr. Netanyahu is not coming to Europe.”
A spokesman for Netanyahu, like Duda on the far right of the political spectrum, declined to comment. Netanyahu has not said whether he will attend the Auschwitz commemoration. He has attended previous anniversary events at Auschwitz.
More than 1.1 million people, mostly Jews, died in gas chambers or from hunger, cold and disease at Auschwitz, which Nazi Germany set up in occupied Poland during World War II.
More than three million of Poland’s 3.2 million Jews were murdered by the Nazis, representing approximately half of the Jews murdered in the Holocaust.