The Trump administration has ramped up its efforts to hobble the international criminal court in what the ICC has denounced as a "flagrant attack against the independence of an impartial judicial institution", writes The Guardian.

"The US state department announced new sanctions on four ICC officials, including two judges and two prosecutors, saying they had been instrumental in efforts to prosecute Americans and Israelis. As a result of the sanctions, any assets that the targets hold in US jurisdictions are frozen.

The sanctions were immediately denounced by both the ICC and the United Nations, while Israel welcomed the move announced by the secretary of state, Marco Rubio.

It is just the latest in a series of steps the Trump administration has taken against the Hague-based court, the world`s first international war crimes tribunal. The US, which is not a member of the court, has already imposed penalties on the ICC`s former chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, who stepped aside in May pending an investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct, and four other tribunal judges.

The new penalties target the ICC judges Kimberly Prost of Canada and Nicolas Guillou of France and prosecutors Nazhat Shameem Khan of Fiji and Mame Mandiaye Niang of Senegal.

"These individuals are foreign persons who directly engaged in efforts by the international criminal court to investigate, arrest, detain or prosecute nationals of the US or Israel, without the consent of either nation. The administration would continue to take whatever actions we deem necessary to protect our troops, our sovereignty and our allies from the ICC’s illegitimate and baseless actions", - Rubio said.

In a separate statement, the state department said Prost was sanctioned for a ruling to authorize an ICC investigation into personnel in Afghanistan, which was later dropped. Guillou was sanctioned for ruling to authorize the ICC`s issuance of arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel` former minister of defense Yoav Gallant related to Israel`s war in Gaza… Khan and Niang were penalized for continuing Karim Khan’s investigation into Israel`s actions in Gaza, including upholding the ICC`s arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant, according to the statement.

In response, the ICC issued a statement calling the sanctions "a flagrant attack against the independence of an impartial judicial institution" and "an affront against the Court`s states parties, the rules-based international order and, above all, millions of innocent victims across the world".