WASHINGTON: The United States on Thursday imposed sanctions on two more judges of the International Criminal Court after they rejected a challenge by Israel, which sought to end a war crimes probe in Gaza.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who had already ordered sanctions on judges and prosecutors in the case, explicitly linked the new sanctions to a vote Monday in which the judges sided with the majority and upheld arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant.

“We will not tolerate ICC abuses of power that violate the sovereignty of the United States and Israel and wrongly subject US and Israeli persons to the ICC’s jurisdiction,” Rubio said in a statement.

“We will continue to respond with significant and tangible consequences to the ICC’s lawfare and overreach,” he wrote.

It brings to eight the number of ICC judges sanctioned by the Trump administration, along with at least three prosecutors, including chief prosecutor Karim Khan.

The judges newly slapped with sanctions were Gocha Lordki­panidze, formerly Geor­gia’s justice minister, and Erdenebalsuren Damdin of Mongolia.

The sanctions ban the judges from entering the United States and block property or financial transactions with them in the world’s largest economy.

Lordkipanidze was formerly an adjunct professor at Columbia University in New York.

Published in Dawn, December 19th, 2025