The Hungarian administration, under the leadership of populist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, an ally of Netanyahu, took the opportunity of the Israeli Prime Minister’s visit to declare its intentions to start the process of exiting the International Criminal Court, which issued the warrant.

As Netanyahu and Orbán were greeted with full military honors in Budapest’s Castle District, Orbán’s chief of staff, Gergely Gulyás, released a concise statement saying, “The government will begin the withdrawal process on Thursday, following both constitutional and international legal provisions.”

Neither the United States or Israel are signatories to the ICC. Trump in February issued sanctions against the court for its investigations into Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza which has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, many of them children.

The ICC has criticized Hungary’s decision to defy its warrant for Netanyahu. The court’s spokesperson, Fadi El Abdallah, earlier said it’s not for parties to the ICC “to unilaterally determine the soundness of the Court’s legal decisions”. On Thursday, he said the court “recalls that Hungary remains under a duty to cooperate with the ICC”.