UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese
According to more than two dozen interviews the news agency conducted with US and UN officials and sanctioned individuals, Washington is seeking to penalize the ICC over investigations into US and Israeli war crimes.
The effort to target the UN and ICC came in response to requests from at least two US tech companies involved in Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.
Reuters said that the companies approached the White House after receiving letters from Albanese warning they were “contributing to gross violations of human rights” by Israel in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
The companies identified by Albanese include Alphabet, Amazon, Caterpillar, Chevron, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Lockheed Martin, Microsoft, and Palantir.
Tech companies have helped the Israeli military with cloud services and AI to operate weapons systems, including choosing targets to bomb, such as low-level members of Hamas and their wives, children, and neighbors living in the same building.
In November 2024, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then-defense minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes in Gaza, including using starvation as a weapon.
In July, the White House responded to Albanese’s “threatening” letters by placing her and some ICC staff on the US State Department’s Specially Designated Nationals sanctions list, which is traditionally reserved for individuals involved in terrorism, narcotics trafficking, and weapons proliferation.
Despite UN insistence that she had diplomatic immunity, the Trump administration imposed sanctions on Albanese for “writing threatening letters” to the companies and urging the ICC to investigate.
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