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.
Putting aside the question of whether the leadership of those countries actually wanted to arrest him, it’s not obvious to me what they could actually do.
When an aircraft is passing through, and not actually landing, they could order it to land (which it would refuse to do, presumably), then they could resort to some posturing with fighter aircraft, then they would either have to give up or shoot down a foreign head of state.
Unless they’re willing to immediately go to war with Israel and the US, and likely a bunch of other countries, there’s really nothing they can do about it
Not give it passage through their airspace. The most basic things.