FRANCESCA Albanese, the UN's special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, has been added back to the United State's sanction list just one week after being removed.
The Trump administration first announced sanctions on Albanese in July 2025, when secretary of state Marco Rubio accused her of "lawfare" and "biased and malicious activities” against Israel.
These were later lifted on May 21, 2026, after a federal judge said the measures restricted her freedom of speech, issuing a temporary injunction against the sanctions.
However, on Wednesday May 27 the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control updated its website to show Albanese as a Specially Designation National (SDN), meaning she is subject to heavy restrictions .
The sanctions mean that she is barred from entering the US and will have her US-based assets frozen.
Albanese is an Italian citizen, but she owns various US assets including a family home, and her daughter is a US citizen.
In February her family filed a lawsuit on her behalf arguing that the sanctions were disrupting her life with everyday acts like accessing her bank accounts restricted.
The lawsuit also accused the Trump administration of trying to intimidate people who speak out against Israel.
Albanese has been a vocal critic of Israel, stating previously that Benjamin Netanyahu’s government was intent on “crushing” Palestinians’ right to self determination.
Speaking last year at a conference in Doha, she said: “Now the ceasefire has been agreed upon, this is becoming the new tool for Israel to continue the genocide, sorry, to continue what the genocide didn’t achieve: the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, the total crushing of the Palestinians’ right to self determination."
She also criticised the Trump administration for welcoming Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the US despite the International Criminal Court (ICC) having issued an arrest warrant for the leader.
She has long argued that Western governments are not doing enough to support the rights of Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territories. She has also called on dozens of multinational companies to stop doing business with Israel, warning them they risked being complicit in war crimes in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
She said the companies "profited from the Israeli economy of illegal occupation, apartheid, and now genocide" in the occupied Palestinian territories.
More than 75,000 Palestinians have been killed in the territory since 2023, when Israel launched its genocidal invasion of the Gaza strip after the October 7 attacks.
Since the start of Trump's second presidential term nine judges from the ICC have also faced sanctions, as well as various prosecutors for the court.
These ICC representatives were involved in investigating alleged abuses by US and Israeli forces, Al Jazeera reports.
