Hungary says it is withdrawing from ICC as Israeli leader visits

 (Reuters) - Hungary's government has decided to withdraw from the International Criminal Court, it said on Thursday, shortly after Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu, sought under an ICC arrest warrant, arrived in the country for a state visit.

Right-wing Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban invited his Israeli counterpart to Budapest in November, a day after the ICC issued its arrest warrant over allegations of war crimes in Gaza, where Israel launched its offensive following an attack by Hamas-led fighters on southern Israel.

Israel has rejected the accusations, which it says are politically motivated and fuelled by antisemitism. It says the International Criminal Court has lost all legitimacy by issuing the warrants against a democratically elected leader of a country exercising the right of self defence.

As a founding member of the ICC, Hungary is theoretically obliged to arrest and hand over anyone subject to a warrant from the court but Orban made clear that Hungary would not respect the ruling which he called "brazen, cynical and completely unacceptable".

Hungary signed the ICC's founding document in 1999 and ratified it in 2001, but the law has not been promulgated.

Gergely Gulyas, Orban's chief of staff, said in November that although Hungary ratified the Rome Statute of the ICC, it "was never made part of Hungarian law", meaning that no measure of the court can be carried out within Hungary.

On Thursday, Gulyas told state news agency MTI that the government would launch the withdrawal process later in the day.

Orban had raised the prospect of Hungary's exit from the ICC after U.S. President Donald Trump imposed sanctions on the court's prosecutor Karim Khan in February.

"It's time for Hungary to review what we're doing in an international organization that is under U.S. sanctions," Orban said on X in February.

The bill on starting the year-long process of withdrawing from the ICC is likely to be approved by Hungary's parliament that is dominated by Orban's Fidesz party.

Netanyahu has enjoyed strong support over the years from Hungary's Orban, an important ally who has been ready to block EU statements or actions critical of Israel in the past.

ICC judges said when they issued the warrant that there were reasonable grounds to believe Netanyahu and his former defence chief were criminally responsible for acts including murder, persecution and starvation as a weapon of war as part of a "widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population of Gaza".

The Israeli campaign has killed more than 50,000 Palestinians, according to Palestinian health authorities, and devastated the Gaza Strip. The Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, killed 1,200 people and saw more than 250 taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies.

The ICC also issued an arrest warrant against a Hamas leader in November. His death was confirmed after the warrant was issued.

(Reporting by Anita Komuves and Gergely Szakacs; Additional reporting by Anthony Deutsch and Stephanie van den Berg in Amsterdam; Editing by Alison Williams)