Washington, DC – The administration of the American president Donald Trump imposed sanctions on the United Nations expert Francesca Albanese about his documentation on the abuses of Israel against the Palestinians during his war against Gaza.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the sanctions on Wednesday, accusing Albanians of carrying out a “political and economic war campaign against the United States and Israel”.
Albanese, which serves as a special UN report on occupied Palestinian territory, was a leading world voice in the appeal to action to end the violations of human rights in Israel.
Israel and his supporters have reprimanded the Albanians and called him to be withdrawn from his UN post for years.
When he was reached by Tel Aviv Tribune, Albanese seemed to reject the sanctions of the United States, saying that she focuses on the continuation of his work.
“No comments on Mafia style intimidation techniques,” wrote the UN expert in a text message. “Office of reminding the Member States of their obligations to stop and punish the genocide. And those who take advantage of it. “
Earlier Wednesday, she called on European governments for authorizing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – who is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crime accusations in Gaza – to use their air space on a trip.
“Italian, French and Greek citizens deserve to know that each political action violating the legal order (international), weaken them and put them all. And us all,” Albanese wrote in an article on social networks.
Rubio cited the Albanian push for the pursuit of Israeli officials to the ICC as a legal basis for sanctions.
Trump had published a decree in February to impose sanctions on the CPI officials involved in Israel’s “targeting”.
Last month, the Trump administration sanctioned four ICC judges.
On Wednesday, Rubio accused Albanese of anti -Semitism.
“This bias was obvious over the duration of his career, in particular by recommending that the ICC, without a legitimate basis, is arrest mandates to target Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant,” he said.
The ICC has charged Netanyahu and gallant of crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza for having deprived the Palestinians in the enclave of “objects essential to their survival, including food, water and medicine”.
Rubio also underlined a recent Albanese report which documented the role of international companies, including American companies, in the Israeli assault on Gaza, which it describes as a genocide.
“We will not tolerate these campaigns of political and economic war, which threaten our national interests and our sovereignty,” said the best American diplomat.
Trump’s CPI decree freezes the assets of targeted individuals in the United States and prohibited them and their family’s immediate members from entering the country.
Nancy Okail, leader of the Center for International Policy (CIP), has decried the sanctions against the Albanians as “devastating”.
“The sanction of an UN expert gives the signal that the United States act as dictatorships,” Okail told Tel Aviv Tribune.
It is a rogue state behavior.
You cannot say that you are for the rule of law or any kind of international order if you support this.
Even if you think that Netanyahu is not guilty, punishing the ICC or those who engage in its regular procedure put you on the side of dictators and war criminals.
– Dylan Williams (@DylaNOTES) July 9, 2025
Agnes Callamard, the secretary general of Amnesty International, said that she was “dismayed” by the American move.
“We recall that special rapporteurs are independent experts. They are not appointed to please governments or to be popular but to hand over their mandate, ”she wrote on X.
“Albanian works tirelessly to document and report on the illegal occupation of Israel, apartheid and genocide, on the basis of international law,” added Callamard. It has also urged governments around the world to protect to “do everything in their power to mitigate and block the effect of Albanian sanctions and protect the work and independence of special rapporteurs.
Over the past 21 months, the Israel campaign supported by the United States in Gaza has leveled most of the territory and killed at least 57,575 Palestinians, according to local health officials.