France caused a stir by declaring that the Israeli leader enjoyed “immunity” from the ICC arrest warrant. It's a legal statement, but also a highly political one, as Israel has threatened to remove France from the Lebanese Ceasefire Monitoring Committee.

The Foreign Ministry did not say outright that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel would be free to travel to France, but it argued that an I.C.C. rule on immunity may apply to him.

The French Foreign Ministry suggested that Netanyahu may have immunity from arrest because Israel isn’t a signatory to the court’s founding treaty.