Asked About ICC Warrant, Netanyahu Says He Travels With “Special Forces”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday that he travels with Israeli “special forces” in the event that he is arrested abroad for his charges by the International Criminal Court (ICC) — as he vowed to travel to New York City for the UN General Assembly meeting in September.

In an interview with Fox, Sean Hannity expressed concern that Netanyahu may face arrest in a country that is party to the ICC in the case that his plane needs to make an emergency landing. “God forbid you had a medical emergency and you had to land, and you had to land in a country that recognizes the ICC,” Hannity said. “Do you worry about that?”

“I think about it,” Netanyahu said. “We have special forces around. I served with them for five years,” he said, referring to his time serving in the Israeli military’s elite Seyeret Matkal unit.

“The IDF is pretty tough,” Hannity said.

“Let’s give them a new task,” Netanyahu said.

There are 125 countries party to the ICC’s founding statute, including much of Europe, South and Central America, and Africa, as well as Canada. Not all of these countries would necessarily arrest Netanyahu if he were to make an emergency landing, however, and some critics have noted that member states have allowed Netanyahu to fly over their airspace unimpeded.

Several European countries have vowed to arrest him if he steps foot in their territory. Last year, flight data showed that his plane took a route that seemed tailored to avoiding entering the airspace of several European countries like Spain and Ireland.

Netanyahu’s comment seems to suggest that Israeli forces would somehow protect Netanyahu in a foreign country if their law enforcement officers tried to arrest him.

This could, theoretically, include his travel within the U.S., though the U.S. is not party to the ICC. The prime minister said that he is not deterred by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s recent remarks calling on the U.S. to join the ICC and arrest him.

Netanyahu said that he is going to New York to “speak the truth” in front of the United Nations. He criticized Mamdani for supposedly “fomenting hate” — though a poll this month found that Mamdani is actually more popular among Jewish adults than Netanyahu.

Meanwhile, a large proportion of Americans agree that the U.S. should carry out the ICC warrant against Netanyahu. A poll by The Economist/YouGov this week found that 49 percent of Americans back Netanyahu’s arrest — a 22 point margin over those who don’t. Similar proportions believe that Netanyahu has committed war crimes, and that Israel is committing genocide, the poll found.