Chancellor-designate Friedrich Merz has invited Netanyahu to Germany, Israeli prime minister’s office says

German chancellor-designate Friedrich Merz said Thursday that he will make sure Benjamin Netanyahu can visit Germany without being arrested, taking a stand against the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant for the Israeli prime minister.

“In the event that [Netanyahu] plans to visit Germany, I have also promised myself that we will find a way to ensure that he can visit Germany and leave again without being arrested,” Merz said at a press conference in Berlin, a day after his conservative Christian Democratic Union party won national elections.

The ICC issued arrest warrants in November for Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant, accusing them of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Israel-Hamas war. More than 100 nations are legally obligated to arrest Netanyahu if he enters their territory, though countries including France and Italy have indicated they will not comply.

A spokesman for outgoing chancellor Olaf Scholz, of the left-wing Social Democratic Party, had declined to say whether Scholz’s government would execute the warrants.

Neither the United States nor Israel is a member of the ICC.

Netanyahu’s office said Merz has invited the Israeli leader “to make an official visit to Germany, in overt defiance of the scandalous International Criminal Court decision to label the Prime Minister a war criminal.”

President Donald Trump signed an executive order in early February sanctioning the ICC over its efforts to prosecute Israel and other American allies. “The ICC consistently constrains liberal, democratic nations like Israel in exercising their rights to self-defense,” a White House fact sheet reads, adding that Trump “will not support an organization that unfairly targets U.S. citizens and our allies.”