US taxpayer group calls on ICC to investigate Trump, Rubio for 'aiding' Gaza genocide

A group of US taxpayers and international human rights lawyers have officially called on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate President Donald Trump and his top diplomat Marco Rubio for "aiding and abetting genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity committed by Israel in Gaza". They announced it at a press conference at the court's home in The Hague, in the Netherlands, on Wednesday. The submission to the court was organised by the Taxpayer Alliance Against Genocide (Taag), and includes sworn affidavits from doctors who worked in Gaza, firsthand eyewitness accounts, whistleblower testimony, video evidence, and extensive documentation of what they say is US military, financial, diplomatic, and political support for Israel, the group said. Among those involved are Dr Feroze Sidhwa, a trauma surgeon who undertook two missions in Gaza, and David McIntosh, a former contractor with the scandal-plagued and now-defunct Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, both of whom have previously shared their detailed experiences with Middle East Eye. It took nearly a year to compile the necessary proof that without the US, Israel could not have carried out what the United Nations and Holocaust scholars have described as a genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, Taag said in a press release accompanying the announcement. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters Taag filed an Article 15 communication with the ICC, "providing the Office of the Prosecutor with an extensive evidence submission that achieves the legal threshold for arrest warrants to be issued for both officials", Taag co-founder Seth Donnelly said at the press conference. "We urge the Office of the Prosecutor to act quickly on this evidence," he added. "We have tried, through extensive litigation, to have the US federal court system intervene to stop the participation of US officials in the crime of genocide. The US court system has proven incapable, again and again and again, from addressing this crime." More than 74,500 Palestinians have been killed by Israel in Gaza over a span of three years, with Israeli air strikes and sniper fire continuing well past a year after the October 2025 ceasefire was agreed. The Lancet medical journal estimates a far higher death toll once all remains are recovered. At least 19 children were killed by Israel in Gaza last month alone, the health ministry said. Utilising the law The ICC already has two outstanding warrants for the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence minister, Yoav Gallant. While the US has long been hostile to the ICC, the Trump administration, in particular, has made it a priority to sanction and dismantle the legal body. Just hours after one of the ICC's founding judges won the Nobel Peace Prize last month, the US moved to cut off the court from the US-dominated international banking system. Gaza flooding is a catastrophe by design - and the spineless West is complicit Read More » The measures followed earlier sanctions against half of the court's 18 judges and much of its leadership, including its president and chief prosecutor. "The ICC is fighting for its life," Reed Brody, counsel for Human Rights Watch, told MEE on Wednesday. "But Taag is doing what they should be doing." Brody is a war crimes lawyer and organised a similar ICC submission last year to investigate former US President Joe Biden and his Secretary of State Antony Blinken. "I would be surprised to see the court taking any kind of bold action at this point," he added, but considered it possible that the two deputy prosecutors currently in charge may want to use this moment to make a bid for the top spot by not "bending the knee to the United States". "I think you have to do this," Brody said of Taag's efforts. "I think this is what the law and the courts are there for." The ICC's chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, was ousted earlier this year by member states after a misconduct probe. Khan denied any wrongdoing. 'Brick by brick' Taag was able to proceed with its court submission after a US federal judge last month blocked the Trump administration from potentially imposing civil or criminal liability on two US-based human rights groups that carry out work in "service" of ICC cases. Taag was one of those groups, in addition to Democracy for the Arab World Now (Dawn), which was founded by the late MEE columnist Jamal Khashoggi. Judge Jesse Furman of the Southern District of New York said the plaintiffs "demonstrate a likelihood of success on the merits of their claim that the [presidential executive] Order violates their First Amendment rights to speak", and that "[t]he loss of First Amendment freedoms, for even minimal periods of time, unquestionably constitutes irreparable injury". The founders of the ICC must not let it be destroyed Read More » Furman then issued a preliminary injunction blocking any speech-based punitive measures against the two groups. Dawn and Taag said they felt compelled to immediately go to court after Rubio wrote in an opinion piece that the US was willing to dismantle the ICC "brick by brick" earlier this year. Four other US-based rights groups have also sued the Trump administration over its sanctions on the ICC in a separate case, insisting that Trump's power to sanction the court is "based on a pseudo national emergency that has no basis in fact". That case is ongoing. In the early weeks of his presidency nearly two years ago, Trump signed Executive Order 14203, granting US officials the power to impose sanctions on foreigners for supporting the ICC's investigations into US and Israeli nationals for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. He made it a federal offence to provide a "service" to, or receive one from, a sanctioned individual or entity. While Washington played a role in the early development of the ICC and signed the Rome Statute in 2000 under the presidency of Bill Clinton, it never submitted the statute to the Senate for ratification, amid fears the ICC could prosecute US military personnel and officials for alleged war crimes, especially in conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. But Trump himself has been blunt about needing to punish the ICC for specifically going after Israel.