WARSAW According to a top adviser on Thursday, Poland’s president requested that the government guarantee that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu can attend the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz Nazi death camp without worrying about being arrested under an ICC warrant.
For alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza battle between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants in November for Netanyahu, his former defense minister, and Ibrahim Al-Masri, the leader of Hamas.
Israel claims it fought in self-defense during its air and ground war in Gaza, which was sparked by Hamas’ cross-border attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, and has denounced the warrants for Netanyahu and former defense commander Yoav Gallant.
According to a Bloomberg story on Wednesday, President Andrzej Duda wrote Prime Minister Donald Tusk to request that Poland make sure Netanyahu can attend the Jan. 27 Auschwitz remembrance without any obstacles because of the extraordinary nature of the event.
The chief of Duda’s office, Malgorzata Paprocka, told official news agency PAP on Thursday that the letter had been sent.
According to the president, there is just one problem, and that is the Auschwitz camp. Every Israeli citizen and official from this nation should be able to participate in this extraordinary occasion.
Duda was awaiting a response, she added. A request for response via email was not answered by Tusk’s office.
Since taking office in December 2023, Tusk’s centrist, pro-European cabinet has had a strained relationship with Duda, a right-wing nationalist.
Deputy Prime Minister Krzysztof Gawkowski responded, “There is no such topic, because Mr. Netanyahu is not coming to Europe,” when asked if Netanyahu could rely on a promise from Poland that he would not be imprisoned by state-run news channel TVP Info.
Like Duda on the hard right of the political spectrum, a Netanyahu official chose not to comment. Netanyahu has not stated if he would go to the memorial of Auschwitz. He has been to Auschwitz anniversary celebrations before.
At Auschwitz, which Nazi Germany established in occupied Poland during World War Two, more than 1.1 million people—mostly Jews—perished in gas chambers or from malnutrition, the cold, and illness.
Approximately half of the Jews slaughtered during the Holocaust were murdered by the Nazis, who massacred over 3 million of Poland’s 3.2 million Jews.