US sanctions UN official overseeing Palestinian rights
The sanctions come on the heels of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's meeting with President Donald Trump.
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration on Wednesday imposed sanctions on a top United Nations official who has been outspoken in her criticism of Israel’s conduct in the Gaza Strip, accusing her of antisemitism and support for terrorism.
Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories since 2022, is the latest UN official to come under fire from the administration for alleged bias against Israel and the United States. Last month, the administration sanctioned four International Criminal Court judges in retaliation for a set of war crimes probes involving Israel and the United States.
In a statement announcing Albanese’s designation, Secretary of State Marco Rubio accused her of orchestrating a “campaign of political and economic warfare against the United States and Israel.”
“Albanese has spewed unabashed antisemitism, expressed support for terrorism and open contempt for the United States, Israel and the West,” Rubio said. “That bias has been apparent across the span of her career.”
In a report to the UN Human Rights Council last week, Albanese called out dozens of companies, including Microsoft and Google, for their alleged “complicity” in what she termed Israel’s “economy of genocide” against the Palestinians.
“Any decision to continue engagement in Israel’s economy is therefore done with knowledge of the crimes that may be taking place,” Albanese said in the report.
Israel banned Albanese, an Italian national, from entering the country in February 2024. Last month, the Trump administration formally called on UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to remove Albanese from her position as rapporteur, accusing her of "virulent antisemitism and support for terrorism."
The Biden administration was also critical of Albanese, who cast doubt on the reports of rape and sexual violence committed by the militants during their attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. After she said Hamas’ Oct. 7 victims “were not killed because of their Judaism, but in response to Israel’s oppression,” then-US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield posted on X that Albanese was “unfit for her role.”
The UN rapporteur was hit with sanctions Wednesday under an executive order signed by President Donald Trump in February authorizing asset freezes and visa bans on ICC officials.
In November 2024, the Hague-based court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then-Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, whom the judges had “reasonable grounds to believe” bore responsibility for the war crime of “starvation as a method of warfare” in the Gaza Strip.
Israel and the United States under the Biden administration condemned the ICC decision. Neither country is party to the Rome Statute, the international treaty that established the court in 2002.
The sanctions on Albanese come as Netanyahu conducts his third visit to Washington since Trump returned to office in January. On Wednesday, Albanese slammed the countries — Italy, France and Greece — that let Netanyahu use their airspace to travel to the United States. As Rome Statute signatories, they are in theory "obligated" to arrest him, she said in a post on X.
