UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese has been targeted by Israel and the US for her Palestine activism and legal work [Getty]
The United States has reimposed sanctions on the United Nations Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, just days after quietly lifting the measures that had targeted her over her advocacy for Palestinian rights and outspokenness on Israeli actions in Gaza.
According to an update published on the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) website, Albanese has been returned to the list of sanctioned individuals under the category of designations related to the International Criminal Court (ICC).
The decision essentially reverses her brief removal earlier in May, when US District Judge Richard Leon in Washington DC issued an injunction temporarily blocking enforcement of the sanctions following a lawsuit filed by Albanese’s husband and daughter, a US citizen.
In that ruling, the court found that the measures appeared to punish Albanese for her advocacy on Palestine and to regulate speech based on the “ideas or message expressed”, prompting OFAC to halt implementation and enforcement while leaving the designation formally in place.
The renewed listing restores restrictions first imposed by the Trump administration in July 2025, which were put forth with the claim that Albanese had pushed the ICC to investigate Israeli and US officials and entities over war crimes in Gaza.
The sanctions, which had previously barred the Italian legal scholar from entering the United States and severely limited her access to banking services there, were widely viewed by rights advocates as an unprecedented attempt to silence a UN mandate-holder critical of US and Israeli policy.
