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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived in Budapest early Thursday on his first trip to Europe since 2023 and in defiance of the International Criminal Court (ICC)’s arrest warrant against him.Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban extended an invitation to Netanyahu last November, a day after the ICC issued the arrest warrant over alleged war crimes in Gaza. Orban vowed the EU member would not execute the warrant, despite being an ICC member, saying the court’s decision “intervenes in an ongoing conflict… for political purposes”.”Welcome to Budapest, Benjamin Netanyahu!” wrote Hungary’s Defence Minister Kristof Szalay-Bobrovniczky on Facebook as Netanyahu began his visit, and after greeting him at the airport in capital Budapest.Netanyahu was welcomed with military honours, after which he will hold talks with Orban.A joint news conference is expected around 12:30 pm (1030 GMT).- ‘Legal obligation’ -Experts say the Israeli premier, who is scheduled to stay in Hungary until Sunday, is trying to diminish the impact of the court’s decision, while hoping to drive attention away from tensions at home as he meets like-minded ally Orban.”His ultimate goal is to regain the ability to travel wherever he wants,” Moshe Klughaft, an international strategic consultant and former advisor to Netanyahu, told AFP.”At first, he’s flying to places where there’s no risk of arrest, and in doing so, he’s also paving the way to normalise his future travels.”Germany’s chancellor-in-waiting Friedrich Merz in February vowed to make sure Netanyahu can visit his country.The Hungary trip “goes hand in hand with US sanctions against the ICC,” Klughaft said, referring to the punitive measures US President Donald Trump imposed in February over what he described as “illegitimate and baseless actions targeting America and our close ally Israel”.The ICC, based in The Hague, stressed it would be Hungary’s “legal obligation” and “responsibility towards other state parties” to enforce the court’s decisions.”When states have concerns in cooperating with the court, they may consult the court in a timely and efficient manner,” ICC spokesman Fadi El-Abdallah said.”However, it is not for states to unilaterally determine the soundness of the court’s legal decisions,” he added.Hungary signed the Rome Statute, the international treaty that created the ICC, in 1999 and ratified it two years later during Orban’s first term in office.The ICC, set up in 2002, has no police of its own and relies on the cooperation of its 125 member states to carry out any arrest warrants.However, Budapest has not promulgated the associated convention for constitutional reasons and therefore asserts it is not obliged to comply with the decisions of the ICC.Hungary has also repeatedly floated leaving the ICC — like Burundi and the Philippines — and has already decided to do so, Radio Free Europe reported on Wednesday, citing diplomatic sources.- Increasing pressure -The ICC issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant over allegations of crimes against humanity and war crimes — including starvation as a method of warfare — in Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.The war was sparked by the militant Palestinian group’s attack against Israel on October 7, 2023.After Orban invited him, Netanyahu responded by thanking his counterpart for showing “moral clarity”.During the visit, Orban is expected to support Netanyahu on Trump’s proposal to relocate more than two million Palestinians from Gaza to neighbouring countries such as Egypt and Jordan.Netanyahu’s trip comes as he faces increasing pressure over his government’s attempts to replace both the domestic security chief and attorney general, while expanding the power of politicians over the appointment of judges. The Israeli prime minister also testified in a probe involving alleged payments from Qatar to some of his senior staff after two of his aides were arrested.”One of Netanyahu’s methods is controlling the Israeli agenda,” Klughaft said, adding that the Hungary visit gives him a chance to set the conversation for days. “In such a turbulent period, that’s worth a lot to him.”In the past, some top leaders wanted by the ICC have thumbed their noses at the court and travelled to member states with impunity.Mongolia ignored an ICC warrant last year when it welcomed Russian President Vladimir Putin for a state visit.Putin is accused of war crimes for the alleged illegal deportation of thousands of Ukrainian children since the Russian invasion in 2022.

War has left Gaza littered with unexploded bombs that will take years to clear, with children drawn to metal casings maimed or even killed when they try to pick them up, a demining expert said.Nicholas Orr, a former UK military deminer, told AFP after a mission to the war-battered Palestinian territory that “we’re losing two people a day to UXO (unexploded ordnance) at the moment.”According to Orr, most of the casualties are children out of school desperate for something to do, searching through the rubble of bombed-out buildings sometimes for lack of better playthings.”They’re bored, they’re running around, they find something curious, they play with it, and that’s the end,” he said.Among the victims was 15-year-old Ahmed Azzam, who lost his leg to an explosive left in the rubble as he returned to his home in the southern city of Rafah after months of displacement.”We were inspecting the remains of our home and there was a suspicious object in the rubble,” Azzam told AFP.”I didn’t know it was explosive, but suddenly it detonated,” he said, causing “severe wounds to both my legs, which led to the amputation of one of them.”He was one of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians returning home during a truce that brought short-lived calm to Gaza after more than 15 months of war, before Israel resumed its bombardment and military operations last month.For Azzam and other children, the return was marred by the dangers of leftover explosives.- ‘Attractive to kids’ -Demining expert Orr, who was in Gaza for charity Handicap International, said that while no one is safe from the threat posed by unexploded munitions, children are especially vulnerable.Some ordnance is like “gold to look at, so they’re quite attractive to kids”, he said.”You pick that up and that detonates. That’s you and your family gone, and the rest of your building.”Another common scenario involved people back from displacement, said Orr, giving an example of “a father of a family who’s moved back to his home to reclaim his life, and finds that there’s UXO in his garden”.”So he tries to help himself and help his family by moving the UXO, and there’s an accident.”With fighting ongoing and humanitarian access limited, little data is available, but in January the UN Mine Action Service said that “between five and 10 percent” of weapons fired into Gaza failed to detonate.It could take 14 years to make the coastal territory safe from unexploded bombs, the UN agency said.Alexandra Saieh, head of advocacy for Save The Children, said unexploded ordnance is a common sight in the Gaza Strip, where her charity operates.”When our teams go on field they see UXOs all the time. Gaza is littered with them,” she said.- ‘Numbers game’ -For children who lose limbs from blasts, “the situation is catastrophic”, said Saieh, because “child amputees require specialised long-term care… that’s just not available in Gaza”.In early March, just before the ceasefire collapsed, Israel blocked all aid from entering Gaza. That included prosthetics that could have helped avoid long-term mobility loss, Saieh said.Unexploded ordnance comes in various forms, Orr said. In Gaza’s north, where ground battles raged for months, there are things like “mortars, grenades, and a lot of bullets”.In Rafah, where air strikes were more intense than ground combat, “it’s artillery projectiles, it’s airdrop projectiles”, which can often weigh dozens of kilograms, he added.Orr said he was unable to obtain permission to conduct bomb disposal in Gaza, as Israeli aerial surveillance could have mistaken him for a militant attempting to repurpose unexploded ordnance into weapons.He also said that while awareness-raising could help Gazans manage the threat, the message doesn’t always travel fast enough.”People see each other moving it and think, ‘Oh, they’ve done it, I can get away with it,'” Orr said, warning that it was difficult for a layperson to know which bombs might still explode, insisting it was not worth the risk.”You’re just playing against the odds, it’s a numbers game.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that the military was “dissecting” the Gaza Strip and seizing territory to pressure Hamas into freeing hostages still held in the enclave.It came as rescuers said 34 people were killed in continued Israeli strikes on the territory, including on a UN building.The military is “dissecting the (Gaza) Strip and increasing the pressure step by step so that (Hamas) will return our hostages”, Netanyahu said in a statement, adding that Israel “is seizing territory, striking terrorists, and destroying infrastructure”.He added that the army is “taking control of the ‘Morag Axis'”, a strip of land that is expected to run between the southern governorates of Khan Yunis and Rafah.The name of the axis refers to a former Israeli settlement that was evacuated when Israel unilaterally pulled out of Gaza in 2005.Defence Minister Israel Katz earlier said Israel would bolster its military presence in the Palestinian territory to “destroy and clear the area of terrorists and terrorist infrastructure”.The operation would “seize large areas that will be incorporated into Israeli security zones” already under military control, he said in a statement, without specifying how much territory.But Hamas has remained defiant and rejected the latest Israeli proposal on a Gaza truce, two officials from the movement told AFP on Wednesday.Egypt, Qatar and the United States are attempting to broker a new ceasefire and secure the release of the remaining Israeli hostages.”Hamas has decided not to follow up on the latest Israeli proposal presented through the mediators” said one of the officials, speaking on condition of anonymity.They accused Israel of “blocking a proposal from Egypt and Qatar and trying to derail any agreement”.On Sunday, Netanyahu offered to let Hamas leaders leave Gaza but demanded the group abandon its arms. Hamas has signalled willingness to cede power in Gaza but calls disarmament a “red line”.- ‘Horrified’ -Gaza’s civil defence agency said an Israeli strike that targeted a UN building “housing a medical clinic in Jabalia refugee camp” killed at least 19 people, including nine children.The Israeli army said it struck Hamas militants “inside a command and control centre” in north Gaza’s Jabalia. It separately confirmed to AFP the building housed a UN clinic.The Palestinian foreign ministry, based in the occupied West Bank, condemned the “massacre” at the clinic run by UNRWA, the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, and called for “serious international pressure” to halt Israel’s widening offensive.Israel has on several occasions conducted strikes on UNRWA buildings housing displaced people in Gaza, where fighting has raged for most of the past 18 months.The Israeli military accuses Hamas of hiding in school buildings where thousands of Gazans have sought shelter — a charge denied by the Palestinian militant group.Israel also carried out deadly air strikes in southern and central Gaza on Wednesday. The civil defence said dawn strikes killed at least 13 people in Khan Yunis and two in Nuseirat refugee camp.Late Wednesday, the military said it had intercepted “two projectiles that crossed into Israeli territory from northern Gaza”, after air raid sirens sounded in border communities.Shortly after, military spokesman Avichay Adraee said in an online post that “terrorist organisations… launch their rockets from among civilians”, telling Palestinians in parts of northern Gaza to evacuate “for your safety” ahead of an attack.Israel resumed intense bombing of Gaza on March 18 before launching a new ground offensive, ending a nearly two-month ceasefire.An Israeli group representing the families of hostages still held in Gaza said they were “horrified” by Katz’s announcement of expanded military operations.UN chief Antonio Guterres on Wednesday called for “a full, thorough and independent investigation” into the killing of 15 emergency responders in Gaza, whose bodies had been recovered days after a shooting last month in the southern city of Rafah.- Hunger -At least 1,066 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel resumed military operations, the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory said.That took the overall toll to at least 50,423 since the war began with Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, according to Israeli figures.Hunger loomed in Gaza City as bakeries closed due to worsening shortages of flour and sugar since Israel blocked the entry of supplies from March 2.”I’ve been going from bakery to bakery all morning, but none of them are operating, they’re all closed,” Amina al-Sayed told AFP.

Syria on Thursday condemned deadly Israeli strikes across the country as a “flagrant violation” of its sovereignty, after Israel said it struck “military capabilities”.Syrian state media said the strikes hit close to a defence research centre in Damascus, among other sites, while a war monitor reported four dead in the latest Israeli attack on Syria since Islamist-led forces ousted longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad.”In a blatant violation of international law and Syrian sovereignty, Israeli forces launched airstrikes on five locations across the country,” the Syrian foreign ministry said in a statement on Telegram.”This unjustified escalation is a deliberate attempt to destabilise Syria and exacerbate the suffering of its people.”It said the strikes resulted in the “near-total destruction” of a military airport in central Syrian province Hama, injuring dozens of civilians and soldiers.Syria’s SANA news agency reported a strike that “targeted the vicinity of the scientific research building” in Damascus’s northern Barzeh neighbourhood, and a raid in the vicinity of Hama, without specifying what was hit.The Israeli military said in a statement that forces “struck military capabilities that remained at the Syrian bases of Hama and T4, along with additional remaining military infrastructure sites in the area of Damascus”.Israel has said it wants to prevent weapons from falling into the hands of the new authorities, whom it considers jihadists.The Syrian ministry said the strikes came as the country was trying to rebuild after 14 years of war, calling it a strategy to “normalise violence within the country”.Last month, Israel said it struck the T4 military base in central Homs province twice, targeting military capabilities at the site.The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said that “four people were killed and others wounded, including Syrian defence ministry personnel, in the strikes on Hama military airport”.- Buffer zone -The monitor said those raids, which targeted “remaining planes, runways and towers, put the airport completely out of service,” also reporting that the Damascus strikes targeted the research centre in Barzeh.In the days after Assad’s fall on December 8, the Britain-based Observatory reported Israeli strikes targeting the centre.Western countries including the United States had previously struck the defence ministry facility in 2018, saying it was related to Syria’s “chemical weapons infrastructure”.Also since Assad’s fall, Israel has deployed troops to a UN-patrolled buffer zone on the strategic Golan Heights and called for the complete demilitarisation of southern Syria, which borders the Israeli-annexed Golan.Authorities in south Syria’s Daraa on Telegram late Wednesday said that several Israeli military vehicles entered an area in the province’s west, reporting that “three (Israeli) artillery shells” targeted the area.The Observatory has reported repeated Israeli military incursions into southern Syria beyond the demarcation line in recent months.Last month, during a visit to Jerusalem, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said that Israeli strikes on Syria were “unnecessary” and threatened to worsen the situation.

US President Donald Trump ignited a potentially ruinous trade war Wednesday as he slapped sweeping 10 percent tariffs on imports from around the world and harsh additional levies on key trading partners.Speaking in the White House Rose Garden against a backdrop of US flags, Trump unveiled particularly stinging tariffs on China and the European Union …

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Syrian state media said Israel struck near a defence research centre in Damascus and hit central Syria on Wednesday, as Israel said it struck “military” capabilities and a monitor reported four dead.Israel has launched hundreds of strikes on sites in Syria since Islamist-led forces ousted longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad, saying it wants to prevent weapons from falling into the hands of the new authorities, whom it considers jihadists.”An Israeli occupation aircraft strike targeted the vicinity of the scientific research building” in Damascus’s northern Barzeh neighbourhood, Syria’s SANA news agency said.It also reported an Israeli raid targeting “the vicinity of the city of Hama” in central Syria, without specifying what was hit.The Israeli military said in a statement that forces “struck military capabilities that remained at the Syrian bases of Hama and T4, along with additional remaining military infrastructure sites in the area of Damascus”.Last month, Israel said it struck the T4 military base in central Homs province twice, targeting military capabilities at the site.The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said that “four people were killed and others wounded, including Syrian defence ministry personnel, in the strikes on Hama military airport”.It said those raids, which targeted “remaining planes, runways and towers, put the airport completely out of service,” also reporting that the Damascus strikes targeted the research centre in Barzeh.In the days after Assad’s fall on December 8, the Britain-based Observatory reported Israeli strikes targeting the centre.Western countries including the United States had previously struck the defence ministry facility in 2018, saying it was related to Syria’s “chemical weapons infrastructure”.Also since Assad’s fall, Israel has deployed troops to a UN-patrolled buffer zone on the strategic Golan Heights and called for the complete demilitarisation of southern Syria, which borders the Israeli-annexed Golan.Authorities in south Syria’s Daraa on Telegram late Wednesday said that several Israeli military vehicles entered an area in the province’s west, reporting that “three (Israeli) artillery shells” targeted the area.The Observatory has reported repeated Israeli military incursions into southern Syria beyond the demarcation line in recent months.Last month, during a visit to Jerusalem, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said that Israeli strikes on Syria were “unnecessary” and threatened to worsen the situation.Syria’s foreign ministry has accused Israel of waging a campaign against “the stability of the country”.

Wall Street stocks finished higher Wednesday following a volatile session ahead of US President Donald Trump’s latest tariff announcements, while European stocks ended the day lower. After initially retreating ahead of Trump’s “Liberation Day” of new trade levies, US indices forged higher during the session amid hopes that markets have oversold in anticipation of the plan.But …

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