Earlier Friday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced the reversal of a Trump-era executive order that sanctioned International Criminal Court (ICC) officials and restricted the issuance of visas to Court personnel. At the same time, Blinken emphasized Washington disagrees with the ICC war crimes probes into both the US and israel.
During a Friday phone call, Blinken and his Israeli counterpart, Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi, discussed a number of topics, including regional security challenges for the Israeli government, humanitarian assistance for Palestinians and “the normalization of relations with Arab and Muslim majority countries,” detailed State Department spokesperson Ned Price.
Price's statement on the US-israel government phone call made no mention of US President Joe Biden's decision to cease sanctions against ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and Phakiso Mochochoko, head of the ICC Jurisdiction, Complementary, and Cooperation Division.
Bensouda notably announced in March that the Court would probe alleged war crimes perpetrated by the Israel Defense Forces and other military groups since June 2014.
Formal notices on the investigation were issued to both Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA).
Last week, Israel moved to suspend the travel permit of Riyad al-Maliki, foreign minister of the PA, following his visit to the ICC. That same day, al-Maliki's team was interrogated by…
