Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be a notable absentee at today’s Holocaust Memorial Day commemorations at Auschwitz.
World leaders will gather for a service to mark 80 years since the liberation of the Nazi concentration and extermination camp, but Mr Netanyahu will be nowhere to be seen.
The momentous occasion will honour the six million Jewish people slaughtered during the Second World War.
The ceremony comes a little over one week after a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas was struck ending 15 months of war in the Middle East.
But arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court [ICC], which is headquartered in The Hague, Netherlands, for Mr Netanyahu, and his former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, means Israel will instead be represented by its Minister of Education Yoav Kisch.
It marks global humiliation for Mr Netanyahu, 75, who is effectively banned from attending a service held at the scene of humanity’s greatest genocide.
Confusion surrounds the no-show with Poland, where the ceremony is being held, legally obliged to carry out the ICC’s warrant issued over Israel‘s military campaign against Hamas after its invasion of southern Israel on October 7, 2023.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog will also be absent at a service that will be attended by Holocaust survivors and their relatives, King Charles, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, French President Emmanuel Macron, King Philip and Queen Letizia of Spain, Polish President Andrzej Duda, and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
Mr Netanyahu has not traveled to Europe since the ICC issued warrants for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity over the war in the Gaza Strip.
The court also issued warrants for Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar, Ismail Haniyeh and Mohammad Deif, all of whom have since been killed.
Like all other European Union member states, Poland is duty bound to execute the warrants as a signatory to the ICC’s founding treaty, although it remains unclear whether any or all countries would arrest Mr Netanyahu if he was to visit one.
However, it is understood the Polish government would have allowed Mr Netanyahu to visit for the anniversary without being arrested.
France believes he has immunity to actions by the ICC as Israel has not signed up to the court statutes. Italy has said it is not feasible to arrest Mr Netanyahu as long as he remains head of Israel’s government.
Israel has strongly rejected the substance of the ICC’s allegations in the warrants related to the fighting in Gaza, which was sparked by the Hamas-led onslaught in which Palestinian terrorists murdered 1,200 people and took 251 hostages while committing brutal atrocities. The subsequent Israeli military offensive killed 47,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry.
Israel has its own remembrance day, set for the Hebrew date of 27 Nissan, which this year falls on April 23.
Then the country falls silent for two minutes. Each year the Israeli Holocaust Memorial Day carries a different theme and is considered one of the most sacred days in the Israeli calendar.
This year’s focus will be on the 80th anniversary of the Auschwitz liberation, just like the international ceremony being held later today.