Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is heading on a four day visit to Hungary, despite an International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant over allegations of war crimes in Gaza.

Hungary, a founding ICC member, is theoretically obliged to arrest and hand over anyone subject to a warrant from the court. However, Prime Minister Viktor Orban made clear it would not respect the ruling.

Netanyahu is expected to meet Orban in Budapest on Wednesday evening. Details of their planned programme have been limited to a visit to a Holocaust memorial.

The trip will be Netanyahu’s second abroad since the ICC issued warrants to arrest both him and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant in November last year. The Israeli prime minister visited Washington in February to meet close ally US President Donald Trump. Israel and the United States are not members of the ICC.

The Hague-based court has criticised Hungary’s decision to defy its warrant for Netanyahu. The court’s spokesperson, Fadi El Abdallah, said that it is not for parties to the ICC “to unilaterally determine the soundness of the Court’s legal decisions”.

Participating states have an obligation to enforce its decisions, El Abdallah told The Associated Press news agency in an email, and may consult with the court if they disagree with its rulings.

“Any dispute concerning the judicial functions of the Court shall be settled by the decision of the Court,” El Abdallah said.

Orban has been the EU’s most intransigent spoiler in the bloc’s decision making and is seen as a pioneer of some of the same tactics that Netanyahu has been accused of employing in Israel, including the subjugation of the judiciary and a crackdown on civil society and human rights groups.

The European Green Party has called for Netanyahu to be arrested and face the ICC trial.

“The European Union and national governments have a duty to uphold international law and ensure accountability for war crimes and human rights abuses,” said the party co-chair Ciaran Cuffe in a statement.

“By ignoring the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant for Prime Minister Netanyahu, Viktor Orban is showing the same disregard for the rule of law on the international stage that he has consistently shown in Hungary,” Cuffe added.

The ICC issued arrest warrants after assessing there were “reasonable grounds” to believe that Netanyahu and Gallant “intentionally and knowingly deprived the civilian population in Gaza of objects indispensable to their survival, including food, water, and medicine and medical supplies, as well as fuel and electricity”.

Israel has rejected all the accusations, which it says are politically motivated and fuelled by anti-Semitism.

[Aljazeera]

Myanmar’s governing military has declared a unilateral, temporary ceasefire in the country’s civil war to facilitate rescue efforts after last week’s powerful earthquake, as state television reported the death toll from the disaster had surpassed 3,000.

MRTV said that the truce would last from Wednesday until April 22 and was aimed at making quake relief efforts easier.

The announcement followed unilateral temporary ceasefires announced by armed resistance groups opposed to military rule. Those groups must refrain from attacking the state, or regrouping, or else the military will take “necessary” measures, the army said in a statement.

The death toll from the earthquake in Myanmar rose to 3,003, and more than 4,500 were injured, MRTV reported late on Wednesday.

In neighbouring Thailand, the death toll from the quake rose to 22, with hundreds of buildings damaged and 72 people missing.

In an incident underlining the challenge of delivering relief at a time of civil war in Myanmar, the military said its troops fired warning shots after a Chinese Red Cross convoy failed to pull over as it travelled in a conflict zone.

The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs told the media that its rescue team and supplies were safe after the incident on Tuesday.

Guo Jiakun, a ministry spokesperson, said at a news conference that Beijing hoped “all factions and parties in Myanmar will prioritise earthquake relief efforts, ensuring the safety of rescue personnel and supplies from China and other countries”.

“It’s necessary to keep transportation routes for relief efforts open and unobstructed,” Guo said.

Military government spokesperson Zaw Min Tun said the Chinese Red Cross had not informed authorities it was in a conflict zone on Tuesday night, and a security team fired shots in the air after the convoy, which included local vehicles, failed to stop.

The military has struggled to run Myanmar following its coup against the elected civilian government of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi in 2021, reducing the economy and basic services, including healthcare, to tatters after civil war broke out.

The United Nations said more than 28 million people in the six regions were affected by the earthquake and that it put in place $12m in emergency funding for food, shelter, water, sanitation, mental health support and other services.

As hopes of finding more survivors were fading on Wednesday, rescuers pulled two men alive from the ruins of a hotel in Myanmar’s capital, Naypyidaw, and a third from a guesthouse in another city – five days after the magnitude 7.7 quake. But most teams were finding only bodies.

The rural parts of the hard-hit Sagaing region, mostly under the control of armed resistance groups fighting the military government, are among the most challenging for aid agencies to reach.

Earlier, Human Rights Watch urged the military government to allow unfettered access for humanitarian aid and lift curbs impeding aid agencies, saying donors should channel aid through independent groups rather than only the authorities.

“Myanmar’s junta cannot be trusted to respond to a disaster of this scale,” Bryony Lau, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said in a report. “Concerned governments and international agencies need to press the junta to allow full and immediate access to survivors, wherever they are.”

[Aljazeera]