Herzog to visit Hungary on Tuesday in first Israeli trip since Orbán's ouster

President Isaac Herzog will fly to Hungary on Tuesday for a 12-hour visit, the first by a senior Israeli official since Péter Magyar’s Tisza party defeated prime minister Viktor Orbán in April. The trip comes at the request of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Jerusalem Post reports.

Herzog will be received at Sándor Palace by Hungarian President András Baka before holding bilateral talks with Magyar on advancing cooperation under the new leadership, Ynet News reports. A central event is his address to the international Voice of the People conference, his global initiative bringing together Jewish leaders and young people from Israel and the diaspora; he closes the visit with a meeting with leaders of Hungary’s Jewish community.

The Israeli government approved the trip in a telephone vote on Monday morning, Ynet reports. The visit marks the first high-level engagement between the two countries since the political upheaval, following what the Prime Minister’s Office described as a “warm introductory” phone call between Netanyahu and Magyar-elect on April 15, during which Magyar invited Netanyahu to a ceremony marking the 70th anniversary of the Hungarian Uprising, and Netanyahu invited Magyar to a government-to-government meeting in Jerusalem.

Orbán had been one of Israel’s closest European allies, and the visit comes amid major Hungarian foreign-policy shifts — including Magyar’s May reversal of Orbán’s planned ICC withdrawal, keeping Hungary within the court.

Sources: Jerusalem Post (published October 19, 2026, 10:51, updated 11:22); Ynet News (published October 19, 2026).