Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Office on Thursday welcomed the US sanctions imposed against two International Criminal Court (ICC) judges over the court’s case involving Israel.
“Israel appreciates the decisive leadership and strong action of Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the determination of the United States under the leadership of President Donald Trump to confront the scourge of lawfare, which poses a serious threat to both our nations,” the PMO said in a statement posted to social media.
“Both sanctioned judges sided this week with the ICC’s biased prosecutor Karim Khan who stands credibly accused of committing serious sexual crimes in his legally specious effort to criminalize the State of Israel in an effort to extricate himself from justice,” the statement pointed out, adding that in their actions, the two sanctioned judges “proved yet again that the ICC is not a court of law, but a political tool of international lawfare.”
“As long as the ICC refuses to abide by its own rules of complementarity or to accept that it has no jurisdiction over non-member states, it cannot be treated as an institution of law,” said Netanyahu’s office.
“Rather it must be viewed and treated for what it is: a hostile political body dedicated to destroying the nation-state system, first and foremost by unlawfully pursuing false prosecutions against the State of Israel and the United States of America,” the statement concluded.
The statement came after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the sanctions against the two judges over their participation in the court’s targeting of Israel.
"These individuals have directly engaged in efforts by the ICC to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute Israeli nationals, without Israel's consent, including voting with the majority in favor of the ICC's ruling against Israel's appeal on December 15," Rubio said.
He added, "The ICC has continued to engage in politicized actions targeting Israel, which sets a dangerous precedent for all nations. We will not tolerate ICC abuses of power that violate the sovereignty of the United States and Israel and wrongly subject U.S. and Israeli persons to the ICC's jurisdiction."
"Our message to the Court has been clear: the United States and Israel are not party to the Rome Statute and therefore reject the ICC's jurisdiction. We will continue to respond with significant and tangible consequences to the ICC's lawfare and overreach," Rubio stated.
Just last week, an American official told Reuters that the US has asked the ICC to drop its probes of Israeli leaders over the Gaza war and to formally close its long-running Afghanistan file concerning American personnel. Failure to do so, the source said, could lead to further punitive measures targeting additional ICC figures and potentially the court as an institution.
On Monday, the ICC rejected one in a series of legal challenges brought by Israel against the court's probe into its conduct of the Gaza war.
The judges refused to overturn an earlier decision allowing the prosecution’s investigation into alleged crimes under its jurisdiction to include events following Hamas’s deadly assault on Israel on October 7, 2023.
The ruling means the investigation will continue, and the arrest warrants issued last year for Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant remain in effect.