Above photo: Anna Moneymaker / Getty Images via AFP.
The White House is covering for Israeli war crimes.
Amid its operation to ethnically cleanse and demolish Gaza City.
The US has imposed sanctions on three Palestinian human rights organizations that previously petitioned the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate Israel for war crimes in Gaza.
“Today, the Trump Administration is sanctioning three NGOs – Al Haq, Al Mezan, and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights – for assisting in the ICC’s illegitimate actions against Israel. The United States will continue to protect our own sovereignty and the sovereignty of our allies from the ICC’s overreach,” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote on Thursday evening on X.
The announcement first appeared as a notice on the US Treasury Department’s website on Thursday.
In November 2023, the organizations requested that the ICC investigate Israel for war crimes in response to its actions in Gaza, including carrying out airstrikes on heavily populated civilian areas, imposing a complete siege to cut off food, water, and electricity to the civilian population, and causing the mass displacement of residents.
On 31 October 2023, Israel bombed the Jabalia refugee camp, killing some 120 people, mostly women and children, in one airstrike with a 2,000-pound (907 kilograms) bomb.
In May of 2024, ICC prosecutor Karim Khan requested that the court’s judges issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then-defense minister Yoav Gallant on charges of using starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza.
The ICC issued the arrest warrants in November 2024.
The US responded by imposing sanctions on ICC judges and Khan, calling the Hague-based court a “national security threat.”
A smear campaign was also launched, accusing Khan of sexual misconduct in the workplace.
The ICC was established in 2002 to try cases of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. The jurisdiction of the court is recognized by its 125 member countries. However, the US, China, Russia, and Israel do not recognize the court’s authority.
The US Treasury announcement comes as Israel continues its destruction of Gaza City, which Tel Aviv is seeking to ethnically cleanse of its hundreds of thousands of Palestinian residents.
While Israeli leaders say they wish to defeat Hamas, the Israeli military is systematically demolishing Palestinian cities to make way for a mega real estate project backed by Israeli businessmen and the White House.
US President Donald Trump has stated that Palestinians will be forced to leave Gaza, which will be turned into a high-tech smart city and resort hub he has dubbed the “Riviera of the Middle East.”
Israel has issued evacuation orders for Gaza City as the demolition moves forward.
“The Israeli forces, when they mark any area by red color and they request the people to leave, they really will destroy it,” said Gaza City resident Mohammed Alkurdi while speaking with AP.
“It’s not something partial like before. It’s 100 percent,” he said. “The house, I’m telling my friends, it keeps dancing all the day. It keeps dancing, going right and left like an earthquake.”
Another Gaza City resident, Amjad Shawa, the director of a Palestinian NGO network, told AP that “Gaza [City] will be leveled and destroyed,” like other cities in the enclave.
After months of Israeli bombing, “there is no Rafah. Almost no Khan Yunis,” Shawa said.
Some residents of Gaza City are choosing to leave ahead of the Israeli warplanes and bulldozers.
For others, leaving is not possible at all due to age, sickness, and lack of anywhere else to go.
“The elders, they’re saying we will die here,” Shawa said. “This has pushed the other members of the family to stay, not to leave.”
