Because of the International Court of Justice ruling against Netanyahu, which ruled that he is a war criminal and accused of genocide against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip during the strikes carried out by his army and is internationally demanded to arrest him, Trump saw this as a wrong decision that the court must be punished for.
A White House official announced on Thursday that US President Donald Trump signed a decision to impose sanctions on the International Criminal Court.
The White House explained that the reason for Trump’s decision is that the court “targeted the United States and its allies such as Israel.”
The official added that the sanctions are financial and related to visas on individuals and their families who assist in the International Criminal Court’s investigations into American citizens or US allies.
The move comes after Democrats in the US Senate last week blocked efforts led by Republicans to punish the court, in protest against two arrest warrants it issued against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Galant over the Gaza war.
Netanyahu is currently visiting Washington, where the US capital has seen protests by pro-Palestinian protesters calling for his arrest.
The International Criminal Court has yet to respond to Trump’s decision.
Sources told Reuters last month that the court had taken steps to protect its staff from potential US sanctions, paying three months’ salaries in advance and preparing for financial restrictions that could hamper its efforts.
Last December, the court’s president, Judge Tomoko Akani, warned that sanctions would “quickly undermine the court’s operations in all situations and cases, and threaten its very existence.”
The new US sanctions are the second such incident, as Washington imposed sanctions during the first Trump administration in 2020 on then-prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and one of her top aides over the court’s investigation into alleged war crimes committed by US forces in Afghanistan.
The ICC, a permanent court with 125 member states, can prosecute individuals on charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and crimes of aggression against member states or aggression by their citizens.
It is noteworthy that the United States, China, Russia and Israel are not members of the court.
