Canada, France, Italy and Greece allow Netanyahu’s overflight despite ICC warrant
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu flew over Greece, Italy, France and Canada on Thursday on his way to address the UN, despite an International Criminal Court warrant for his arrest.
The ICC issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu in November 2024, on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity allegedly committed in Gaza since October 2023.
Netanyahu arrived in the US for a short visit to address the UN General Assembly in New York, where Mayor Zohran Mamdani has said he does not have the authority to arrest the Israeli leader. But he urged the US government to implement the arrest warrant, saying it is justified.
"My administration has reviewed every avenue available under applicable law to determine whether New York City could execute the International Criminal Court's arrest warrant if Benjamin Netanyahu came here," Mamdani said in a video address in July after President Donald Trump said Netanyahu would not be arrested.
"It is clear that we do not have the independent legal authority to enforce this warrant. The federal government, however, does, and I call on them to join the ICC and execute this warrant."
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While the US is not a member of the ICC, Canada, Italy, France and Greece (and all EU countries) are members of the war crimes court and are legally obliged to enforce the warrants. The four countries have repeatedly faced criticism over permitting Netanyahu to use their airspace several times since the warrants were issued.
Flight trackers on Thursday showed his government aircraft, Wing of Zion, crossing all three EU countries before heading over the Atlantic and into Canadian airspace, raising legal questions over the ICC members’ alleged breach of international law.
Canada’s foreign minister, Anita Anand, said on Wednesday that she had asked officials to check its planned route. But she did not reply to questions on whether Canada sees Netanyahu as a war criminal.
“Our position is … to respect decisions of international courts and … to support, at all times, people who are suffering, including in Gaza and Palestine and the West Bank, and to ensure that crimes against humanity are addressed as such,” she said.
“We have strong views relating to suffering that has occurred and invasions.”
Netanyahu’s visit comes as the US has denied visas to a high-level Palestinian delegation, including President Mahmoud Abbas, for the second consecutive year.
Washington cited, among other objections, Palestinian efforts to pursue cases involving Israel at the ICC and International Court of Justice. The General Assembly voted to allow Abbas to address it by video.
Palestinian representatives at the UN, meanwhile, have urged diplomatic missions to walk out of Netanyahu’s speech in protest at Israel’s conduct in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
Breach of international law
The ICC issued warrants for Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in November 2024, after judges found reasonable grounds to believe they bore responsibility for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, including the use of starvation as a method of warfare.
Despite multiple previous crossings, Netanyahu avoided France on his way to last year’s General Assembly, although Paris said it had authorised him to cross. His aircraft was subsequently allowed to fly over France in December 2025, February and July 2026, and again on Thursday.
Canada, Greece and Italy have also appeared repeatedly on his routes to the US.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said last year that Netanyahu would be arrested if he entered the country.
There is a precedent when Netanyahu has landed on an ICC member’s territory.
Hungary hosted him from 3 to 6 April 2025. ICC judges subsequently found that Hungary had failed to comply with its obligation to cooperate with the court and referred the matter to the Assembly of States Parties. Hungary later began a withdrawal from the ICC, but its new government reversed that decision before it took effect.
The Rome Statute includes a clear obligation for states to cooperate with requests to arrest and surrender suspects, but does not expressly address an aircraft passing overhead without landing.
France has said it has no obligation under the statute to prevent a state aircraft carrying an ICC suspect from flying over its territory.
Legal experts interviewed previously by Middle East Eye challenged that narrow reading. Others have argued that, whatever the duty to compel a plane to land, states can refuse it permission to enter their airspace.
A French diplomatic source told MEE last year that Netanyahu’s flight on 2 February 2025 had been “authorised” to use French airspace, which they said was “in full compliance with France’s rights and obligations under international law”.
UN special rapporteur Ben Saul disputed France’s position. “Under the Tokyo Convention 1963, a state normally should not interfere in an aircraft in flight to exercise its criminal jurisdiction,” he told MEE at the time.
But there are exceptions for this provision under the same treaty, including where "the exercise of jurisdiction is necessary to ensure the observance of any obligation of such state under a multilateral international agreement".
“So," Saul argued, "the Rome Statute would be one such agreement, allowing a state to require an aircraft overflying its territory to land, in order to arrest a person on board.”
He also explained that the Rome Statute imposes an obligation on states parties to comply with requests for arrest and surrender of any wanted person “found” on their territory.
However, the statute “does not specifically address the question of the overflight of a state”.
Such an obligation is governed by general international law, which considers the airspace above a state’s land territory as part of its sovereign territory, added Saul.
Just as a state has sovereignty over its territorial sea, it also has sovereignty over its “territorial airspace”, he said.
Canada, France, Italy and Greece are states parties to the Convention on International Civil Aviation, a treaty that includes airspace as part of a state’s territory upon which it exercises sovereignty.
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