The United States has imposed sanctions on three Palestinian human rights groups that asked the International Criminal Court to investigate Israel over allegations of genocide in Gaza, according to a notice posted to the U.S. Treasury Department's website on Thursday.
Despite accusations of famine, markets are full in some neighborhoods of Gaza © Mena Today
The United States has imposed sanctions on three Palestinian human rights groups that asked the International Criminal Court to investigate Israel over allegations of genocide in Gaza, according to a notice posted to the U.S. Treasury Department's website on Thursday.
The three groups - Gaza-based Palestinian Centre for Human Rights and Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, and the Ramallah-based Al-Haq - were listed under what the Treasury Department said were International Criminal Court-related designations.
The groups asked the ICC in November 2023 to investigate Israeli air strikes on densely populated civilian areas of Gaza, the siege of the territory and displacement of the population.
A year later, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence chief, Yoav Gallant, as well as a Hamas leader, Ibrahim al-Masri, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.
U.S. President Donald Trump's administration has imposed sanctions on ICC judges as well as its chief prosecutor over the Israeli arrest warrants and a past decision to open a case into alleged war crimes by U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
The ICC, which was established in 2002, has jurisdiction over war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide in its 125 member countries. Some nations, including the U.S., China, Russia and Israel, do not recognise its authority.
The U.S. sanctions against the Palestinian groups come days after the world's biggest academic association of genocide scholars passed a resolution saying the legal criteria have been met to establish Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
Israel called the announcement disgraceful and "entirely based on Hamas' campaign of lies".
Israel launched its assault on the Gaza Strip in October 2023, after fighters from Hamas, the Palestinian militant group in control of the territory, attacked southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking 250 hostages back into Gaza.
Since then, Israel's military action has killed 63,000 people, forced nearly all Gaza's residents to flee their homes at least once, and set off a starvation crisis in parts of the enclave that a global hunger monitor describes as a famine.
Reporting by Ismail Shakil
A broad majority of Greeks continue to back their country’s partnership with Israel, even as protests and political figures on the left demand a cooling of relations in light of the Gaza conflict.
In a shocking display of bias and reckless rhetoric, EU Commissioner Teresa Ribera has ignited outrage by labeling the situation in Gaza as a “genocide” during a speech at Sciences Po Paris on Thursday.
Israel controls 40% of Gaza City, a military spokesperson said on Thursday, as its bombardment forced more Palestinians from their homes there, while thousands of residents defied Israeli orders to leave, remaining behind in the ruins in the path of Israel's latest advance.
To make this website run properly and to improve your experience, we use cookies. For more detailed information, please check our Cookie Policy.
Necessary cookies enable core functionality. The website cannot function properly without these cookies, and can only be disabled by changing your browser preferences.