WASHINGTON, DC, August 20, 2025 (WAFA) – the United States announced on Wednesday that it was sanctioning four International Criminal Court (ICC) officials over their efforts in the genocide case against Israel.
“Today, the United States is sanctioning four individuals, currently serving on the International Criminal Court (ICC) . . . pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 14203, which authorizes sanctions on foreign persons engaged in certain malign efforts by the ICC and aims to impose tangible and significant consequences on those directly engaged in the ICC’s transgressions against the United States and Israel,” the US Secretary of State said in a press release.
The US State Department identified the four officials as the ICC Judges Kimberly Prost and Nicolas Yann Guillou, and ICC Deputy Prosecutors Nazhat Shameem Khan and Mame Mandiaye Niang.
Prost faced sanctions faced penalties for approving investigations into US personnel in Afghanistan, while Guillou was designated for “ruling to authorize the ICC’s issuance of arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant.”
The US State Department added that Deputy Prosecutors Shameem Khan and Niang were sanctioned for “continuing to support illegitimate ICC actions against Israel, including upholding the ICC’s arrest warrants targeting Prime Minister Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Gallant since they assumed leadership for the ICC’s Office of the Prosecutor.”
All property and interests in property of the sanctioned ICC officials are now blocked and individuals or entities that are owned, either directly or indirectly, individually or in the aggregate, 50 percent or more by one or more of the sanctioned officials are also blocked.
Since the genocidal war on Gaza began in October 2023, Israel has found itself diplomatically isolated as a result of atrocities committed against Palestinians in Gaza and its occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
It faces two cases at the ICJ, one over what the court called a “plausible” case for genocide in Gaza, and another for its occupation of Palestinian territories.
The former was filed by South Africa and is backed by several other states, and the latter is a result of a UN General Assembly resolution from 2022, calling for the ICJ to issue an advisory opinion on the legality of the occupation.
At the ICC, prosecutors have issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former minister of ‘Defence’, Yoav Gallant, for crimes against humanity and war crimes.
The US had previously sanctioned ICC prosecutor Karim Khan and had threatened Palestinian officials with sanctions for their role in using international law to bring Israel to account.
Israel has waged a military onslaught on the Strip since October 2023, killing 62,122 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injuring 156,758 others.
Moreover, at least 10,000 people are unaccounted for, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes throughout the Strip.
The Israeli aggression has also resulted in the forceful displacement of nearly two million people from all over the Gaza Strip, with the vast majority of the displaced forced into the densely crowded southern city of Rafah near the border with Egypt – in what has become Palestine’s largest mass exodus since the 1948 Nakba.
K.F.
