Israel steps up witch-hunt targeting pro-Palestine voices

From Fatou Bensouda, a former International Criminal Court prosecutor, to UN rapporteur Francesca Albanese, sanctioned by the Trump administration. There are also Palestinian human rights workers killed in Israeli airstrikes.

An Al Jazeera investigation finds US and Israeli retaliation spans from from the courtroom to the incinerated streets of Gaza. Al Jazeera has once against exposed tactics of thuggery by the US-Israel axis against pro-Palestine voices. Their targets include Palestinian fieldworkers on the ground. Furthermore, they include the highest international courts, including the >

Gaza at risk of becoming graveyard of international law

In January 2025, Ihab Marwan Kamal Faisal, a 33-year-old colleague of Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) director Raji Sourani, was killed along with his family. They died in an Israeli air strike.

Sourani himself has lived through prison, harassment, the destruction of Gaza, and exile to Cairo after his home was bombed. His central demand remains modest:

We don’t want Gaza to be the graveyard of international law, and we want the Gazans to have justice and dignity

Israel’s manufactured terrorist claims

In 2021, Israel designated six Palestinian rights groups – Al-Haq, Addameer, Defense for Children International-Palestine, Bisan Center, the Union of Agricultural Work Committees, and the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees – as “terrorist” organisations.

Tahseen Elayyan, a lawyer and director of Al-Haq, one of the oldest Palestinian human rights groups, told Al Jazeera:

My organisation has been designated as a terrorist organisation because of the work that we do. The organisation is closed by a military order, but we are still working from the office.

ICC intimidation

The intimidation of ICC prosecutors by Israel has been terrifying.

Fatou Bensouda, the former ICC prosecutor, had men appear at her home in the Hague to show her that they knew where she lived. Additionally, their numbers were traced back to Israel.

Bensouda opened the investigation into Israeli war crimes in 2021. But it took Israel’s latest genocidal assault on Palestine for Bensouda’s successor Khan to request arrest warrants. She later met with the then-head of Mossad, Yossi Cohen, who warned her to stop the Palestine investigation.

In 2020, the Trump administration imposed sanctions on Bensouda personally. These froze her bank accounts. Moreover, they blocked her son’s account in The Gambia.

A lonely Bensouda told Al Jazeera that she had been:

sacrificed at the altar of political interests.

In February 2025, Trump signed an executive order imposing sanctions on the ICC after it issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant. In addition, sitting prosecutor Karim Khan has also since been sanctioned. Several ICC judges have been sanctioned as well.

Israel lashes out against UN officials

Albanese, who has documented Israel’s deliberate creation of a “torturous environment” for Palestinians, was sanctioned by the Trump administration in July 2025.

In May 2026, a US federal judge temporarily blocked the sanctions. However, a federal appeals court reinstated the designation days later.

Israel has also lashed out at UN Secretary-General António Guterres after the UN added the Israeli army to its list of parties responsible for grave violations against children. Moreover, Israeli media reported moves to freeze cooperation with his office.