Bensouda Says ICC Is Paying the Price for Palestine Case
The former ICC prosecutor says threats, sanctions and political cover are choking the Palestine file, and the court’s backers are not willing to pay the cost.
Israel and the United States hold the leverage here: they cannot nullify the International Criminal Court’s jurisdiction, but they can make the Palestine case expensive, risky and politically corrosive. In an Al Jazeera interview published on May 24, Fatou Bensouda said Israel wanted the investigations stopped, that she faced threats and pressure while pursuing them, and that ICC member states left her feeling unsupported as sanctions and intimidation escalated (
Al Jazeera).
The Palestine file is now a test of institutional courage
This is no longer just about one former prosecutor’s experience. The ICC issued arrest warrants in November 2024 for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, putting senior Israeli officials inside the court’s reach for the first time in a major Western-aligned case (
BBC; 
CFR). That shifted the conflict from legal argument to open political confrontation.
The response has been calibrated to chill the court, not merely dispute it. In Bensouda’s telling, the message was not only to stop the investigations but to warn future prosecutors and judges what happens when they move against Israel. That is why the issue matters beyond Palestine: if the ICC cannot protect its own personnel from retaliation, its deterrent value drops across every file, from Ukraine to Sudan. For the wider power politics, see 
International Relations and Conflict.
Sanctions are the real weapon
The decisive instrument is not rhetoric; it is financial coercion. The Guardian reported on May 24 that Bensouda called U.S. sanctions on ICC officials “thuggish” and urged the EU to use its blocking statute to shield court staff, after Washington sanctioned 11 ICC officials and three Palestinian organisations in February 2025 (
The Guardian). That is the pressure point: banks, compliance systems and travel restrictions are easier to apply than formal diplomatic isolation, and they hit individual officials where international institutions are most vulnerable.
The pattern is familiar. The CFR notes that the Trump administration already sanctioned ICC officials over Palestine and Afghanistan, and that Biden later lifted those measures before Trump moved back to a hard line in his second term (CFR). The court has therefore become a recurring arena for U.S.-Israeli coordination against legal scrutiny, with Palestinian actors and ICC personnel absorbing the cost.
What to watch next
The next decision point is whether European governments move from expressions of support to operational protection. If Brussels activates blocking measures or creates protected financial channels, the court gets breathing room. If not, Washington and Jerusalem have shown they can impose enough friction to slow investigations without ever defeating the court in open legal combat.
Watch the ICC’s next Palestine-related procedural move, and watch whether member states at the Assembly of States Parties turn Bensouda’s warning into money, legal cover and banking access. Without that, the message to future prosecutors is clear: pursue Israel, and you do so alone. For the U.S. dimension, see United States.
