The Hungarian Parliament has voted to withdraw from the International Criminal Court (ICC), Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó announced on his X.
“With this decision, we refuse to be part of a politicized institution that has lost its impartiality and credibility,” he wrote.
Budapest will send a notification to UN Secretary-General António Guterres, and the decision to withdraw from the ICC will take effect in a year.
On November 21, the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for “intentional and deliberate” deprivation of essential items, including food, water and medicine, to residents of the Gaza Strip, which led to the death of civilians.
Netanyahu’s trip to Hungary in early April was his first since the warrant was issued. The Israeli prime minister called the ICC’s claims a shameful manifestation of “new anti-Semitism.”
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán called the ICC’s decision regarding Netanyahu “outrageously arrogant and cynical” and linked it to an attempt to interfere in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian movement Hamas. The issuance of the arrest warrant for the Israeli prime minister was also condemned by the US.
Israel launched a military operation in the Gaza Strip after an attack by Hamas militants on October 7, 2023, which left about 1,200 people dead and 251 taken hostage. According to estimates by the Palestinian Ministry of Health, more than 43,000 people have been killed since the start of the conflict, 102,000 have been injured, and 1.9 million residents have been forcibly displaced. By April 2025, 1.95 million Palestinians in Gaza could face critical food shortages, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC).
