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Online flight tracking shows Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu flew hundreds of kilometers through Canadian airspace on his way to a meeting with US President Donald Trump on Tuesday – despite Prime Minister Mark Carney previously saying he was complying with an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Netanyahu is wanted convicted by the International Criminal Court of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Carney was Bloomberg asked last October if “Netanyahu would be arrested if he came to Canada.”
The Prime Minister answered “yes” twice.
But it is the second time in the last two months that Netanyahu’s official Israeli government plane has carried him through Canadian territory.
On December 29, Netanyahu’s Boeing 767, known as the “Wings of Zion,” flew over Newfoundland and Nova Scotia en route to landing in Florida, where Netanyahu met Trump at his Mar-A-Lago residence.
When CBC News asked for an explanation of this flight, Global Affairs Canada spokesperson Samantha Lafleur responded that the ministry “does not comment on which route a foreign country chooses. For security reasons, we cannot provide further details.”
The flight crosses 3 provinces
On Tuesday, Netanyahu’s flight crossed Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick before entering U.S. airspace in Maine.
Canadian Protocol requires Foreign government flights must obtain authorization well in advance of entering Canadian airspace.
“Applications for foreign government, military or scientific aircraft to operate on Canadian territory should be submitted at least three working days (72 hours) prior to the proposed date of entry into Canadian airspace,” the government website says. “This advance notification is critical.”
CBC News asked Global Affairs whether the Israeli government had sought approval for the latest flight, but had not received a response at the time of publication.
Netanyahu has flown to the US seven times since Trump’s second inauguration.
During this time, his flight patterns have changed in a way that suggests he is increasingly less concerned about the risk of arrest.
When the Israeli Prime Minister traveled to the United States on September 25, 2025, Wing of Zion took several detours crossed the Mediterranean to stay mostly afloat and entered the Atlantic via the Strait of Gibraltar.
The itinerary added about 400 kilometers to the normal flight length from Tel Aviv to New York.
Since then, however, Netanyahu has been flying more directly over the European continent. His flight routes continued to avoid Spain and Slovenia when he left Hungary.
Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s Spanish government has been one of the most critical of Israel’s war in Gaza and said it would enforce ICC arrest warrants. Slovenia has strongly supported the ICC and banned Netanyahu from his territory the day after one of his cross-Europe flights.
But Netanyahu has flown through several European countries that have signed the Rome Statute (the treaty establishing the International Criminal Court), including France, Italy and Greece.
Only France has publicly stated that it has approved the flights.
The flight path that Netanyahu’s plane followed on Tuesday was a classic Great Circle route (the shortest possible distance) from Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv to Joint Base Andrews in Maryland.
A flight route published by Flight Aware showed the plane passed through nine European countries, including Turkey.
