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White House reimposes sanctions on Francesca Albanese for documenting Israeli war crimes

May 29, 2026

The US has reimposed broad economic sanctions on UN Special Rapporteur for Palestine Francesca Albanese, according to a notice published by the Treasury Department on 28 May.

This move marks the latest escalation in a legal battle between the US President Donald Trump’s administration and the UN expert over her investigations into human rights abuses in the occupied Palestinian territories.

The reinstatement of sanctions on Friday followed a three-judge appeals panel putting a temporary “pause” on a previous order that had stopped sanctions against Francesca Albanese.

This procedural move, known as an administrative stay, allows the US government to resume enforcing sanctions while the legal battle continues.

US reimposes sanctions against Francesca Albanese
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The US has reimposed sanctions on UN Special Rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories Francesca Albanese on 27 May after an appeals court suspended an earlier ruling blocking the move.

A notice published by the US…

— The Cradle (@TheCradleMedia) May 28, 2026

The court stated that this is not a final decision on whether the sanctions are legal, but simply a way to keep them active for now.

The Treasury Department has put Albanese back on its list of “Specially Designated Nationals,” freezing her US assets and once again barring US companies from doing business with her.

On 13 May, US District Judge Richard Leon granted a temporary injunction that briefly removed Albanese from the sanctions list. The judge found that the sanctions on Albanese had violated her First Amendment rights.

The judge stated that her recommendations to the International Criminal Court (ICC) were “nothing more than her opinion” and possessed no binding authority.

Albanese celebrated the ruling at the time, expressing gratitude to her family for defending the principle that “protecting freedom of speech is always in the public interest.”

Prior to the district court’s injunction, Albanese had been receiving high-level international support for her stance against genocide and crimes against humanity perpetrated by Israel against Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

On 7 May, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez awarded Albanese the Order of Civil Merit, calling her a “voice that sustains the world’s conscience” and urging the European Union to activate blocking statutes to shield UN and ICC officials from US pressure.

The legal challenge against the sanctions was launched on 26 February, when Albanese’s husband and daughter filed a lawsuit in a Washington court arguing that the “terrorist-grade sanctions” had severely disrupted their lives, frozen their assets, and restricted access to their home in the US capital.

The lawsuit specifically highlighted the impact on Albanese’s daughter, who is a US citizen, asserting the sanctions were unconstitutional punishment for Albanese’s UN-mandated findings on genocide in Gaza.

In July 2025, the US had imposed the sanctions – typically reserved for drug traffickers and terrorists – partly in response to lobbying from US tech giants, including Alphabet, Amazon, and Microsoft, whom Albanese had named in a report identifying over 40 corporations she found complicit in the Gaza genocide.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio justified the measures as a response to Albanese’s “lawfare” and her successful recommendations for the ICC to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister Yoav Gallant for their leading roles in genocide in Gaza.

Despite UN assertions that Albanese holds diplomatic immunity, the US continues to use these economic weapons to pressure and deter international officials who scrutinize Israeli war crimes across West Asia.