Hello, welcome to the program.

This is News Hour from the BBC World Service, coming to you live from London.

My name's Paul Henley.

First up today, the International Criminal Court has condemned sanctions against it, introduced by Donald Trump.

The US President has authorised economic and travel sanctions, targeting people

who work on ICC investigations into anything to do with the US and its allies, especially

Israel. The ICC is a permanent court based in the Hague that can prosecute individuals for war

crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. Among those who stood in

its dock is the former Bosnian Serb leader Ratko Miladich. But the US has never been a signatory to the

statute that established the court. The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, along with a

cabinet colleague and three Hamas leaders, all now dead, have been

under international arrest warrant from the court. And Mr. Trump's move coincided with a visit to

Washington by Mr. Netanyahu, who has already thanked Mr. Trump for his move.

The decision to issue an arrest warrant against me, the democratically elected prime minister of

the state of Israel, and our former defense minister, was made by a rogue prosecutor who's

trying to extricate himself from sexual harassment charges, and by biased judges, were motivated

by anti-Semitic sentiments. So what impact will this move by President Trump have? The BBC's Anna Holligan in The Hague says it depends on what exactly the sanctions are.

So he ordered the asset freezes and travel bans against ICC officials, employees and their family members,

along with anyone deemed to have helped the court's investigation.

So the question there remains, which individuals and how wide

will this net reach? So if we're talking about sanctioning organizations or people doing business

with the ICC, for example, that could pose an existential threat to the court itself. And the ICC

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