Held in the European Parliament in Strasbourg on 7th October, it was co-organised by IMPAC and the American Jewish Committee’s Transatlantic Institute, and hosted by Hildegard Bentele, the German EPP MEP who chairs the Parliament’s delegation for relations with Israel. Over 200 were present, including at least 55 MEPs.
Photographs by Israeli Ziv Koren lined the gallery. Sculptures by the Gaza-border blacksmith Yaron Bob, forged from rocket metal, stood among them. Teitelbaum said the gathering was meant to restore dignity stripped from the victims and to commit those present to preventing a repetition. “Our common duty to prevent, to combat extremism and radicalisation, that would be a noble way to honour those who were murdered.”
Benedetta Buttiglione, director of the AJC in Brussels, thanked former hostage Omri Miran for being in the room, and called Bob’s rockets-into-roses a refusal to let destruction have the last word. Memory, she said, because the dead would not be forgotten; dignity, because every victim was a human being and not a statistic; and a duty to prevent, because remembrance meant taking responsibility.
Sarah Mordekhay, from the Eshkol region on the Gaza envelope, then lit candles in memory of some of the victims she knew, such as Bernard Cowan from kibbutz Sufa. She described 7th October as the deadliest massacre of Jews since the Shoah, but this time in their homeland: entire families wiped out, “not for what they did, but for who they were.” Never again, she said, meant no justification for terrorism and no tolerance for antisemitism.
Bentele, as host, recalled that more than 1,200 people were murdered that day, including citizens of EU member states, and that 44 EU citizens were among those taken hostage. Some survivors, she said, later took their own lives because the suffering was unbearable. She turned to Miran, who spent 738 days in Hamas captivity, and called his journey from Israel to Strasbourg an act of courage. “Remembrance is our responsibility,” she said.
European Parliament President Roberta Metsola spoke next and began with an apology. Two days earlier, French MEP Rima Hassan of La France Insoumise had visited the exhibition and thrown down the Israel flag, causing the EU flag to fall as well. Witnesses said she stepped over the European flag and made no attempt to pick it up.
Addressing Miran, she said she felt she must apologise, nonetheless. “I hope, dear Omri, you know that the actions of one person this week do not reflect the sentiment, ethos or belief of the vast, vast majority of members of this house who are as outraged as me.” The room applauded. She recalled her visit to Kfar Aza and Re’im on 13th October 2023 with the Speaker of the Knesset: the smell of death, a child’s burnt swing, and a make-up brush handed to her in a bus shelter at Re’im, which still sits on her desk.
She named the Bibas children, Ariel and Kfir, and spoke of girls who survived sexual violence in captivity only to meet sceptics. She did not confine the dead to Israel. “So many since also died in Gaza,” she said. “We are not blind to anyone’s suffering.” The way forward, she argued, had to end terror, disband Hamas and its proxies, and renew the fight against antisemitism. “The line between legitimate criticism and antisemitic narratives should be a chasm that no one crosses.”
Yaron Bob then presented Metsola with a sculpture, the Hand of Peace, a hand rising from broken ground to hold a broken olive branch. The branch was broken, he said, because the losses were terrible; the hand still held it because hope had not been given up. “My dream is that one day there will be no more rockets for me to use”, he concluded.
Israel’s ambassador to the EU and NATO, Avi Nir-Feldklein, asked who in the room had woken that morning wondering whether their country would survive the day. He thanked Metsola for speaking when others stayed silent and told Miran that an entire nation had rejoiced at his return.
Miran spoke last. Abducted from Kibbutz Nahal Oz, he described the safe room with his wife Lishay and their daughters Roni, then two, and Alma, six months old; the murder of the kibbutz security coordinator, Ilan Fiorentino; and the moment terrorists used a 17-year-old neighbour to force the family to open the door.
A rifle was pointed at Roni’s head. As he was led away, the child broke free and screamed for her father. He did not look back, afraid they would be shot. He was beaten by a mob on entering Gaza, held in 23 places, including tunnels about 30 metres underground, and filmed for propaganda. His captors, he said, told him they would repeat 7th October “until the last Jew had either left or been slaughtered.”
Asked whether Gaza’s losses had changed their minds, they answered that 50,000 babies had been born that year: “50,000 new martyrs.” Pressure on Israel, and what he called a false symmetry between Hamas and Hezbollah and Israeli self-defence, had been read by those captors as encouragement, not as a call for peace.
Hildegard Bentele, the host MEP, had already given the day’s answer to the flag incident, writing on the evening it happened: “Knocking down the EU and Israeli flags at our commemoration exhibition does nothing to ease that suffering. We should come together to honour the victims and work to ensure such atrocities never happen again. Remembrance deserves respect.”
The administration of US President Donald Trump imposed comprehensive sanctions on the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Friday, 9th October, extending Washington’s campaign against individual judges and prosecutors to the financial and operational infrastructure of the Hague-based tribunal.
The measures prohibit transactions with the ICC under American jurisdiction and potentially expose companies providing services to the institution to US penalties. Banks, insurers and technology suppliers could face restrictions, threatening the court’s ability to maintain essential operations.
In a statement announcing the measures, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared that Washington intended to deprive the tribunal of resources unless it abandoned proceedings that the administration considers an infringement of American sovereignty.
“Either the ICC will end its threats, or we will end the ICC,” Rubio said.
He also directed an explicit warning towards Washington’s European allies, many of which are parties to the ICC’s founding Rome Statute while relying on American military capabilities for their defence.
The administration expects those governments to restrain the court, Rubio said, linking their security dependence on the United States to Washington’s demands concerning international criminal justice.
The decision represents a substantial escalation from the restrictions previously imposed on ICC personnel, including President Tomoko Akane and senior trial lawyer Abdoulaye Seye in August.
The latest sanctions apply to the institution itself, extending their potential consequences to organisations and businesses maintaining commercial relationships with the court.
The US Treasury has issued four general licences allowing certain transactions involving telecommunications, software, pensions and ICC detainees. The exemptions are limited and leave broader restrictions in place.
The administration has also provided a period for American companies to wind down existing commercial arrangements.
The practical consequences could extend beyond US businesses. International banks and service providers with exposure to American financial markets may reconsider their relationships with the ICC to avoid sanctions risks.
The tribunal has spent months preparing for such restrictions. It has moved office computers away from Microsoft products towards open-source alternatives and established new arrangements for banking and health insurance.
According to a detailed assessment of the anticipated sanctions, the court also faces potential disruption to data storage, communications, payments and contracts with external investigators.
Rubio’s warning to American allies introduces a direct confrontation with European governments that have undertaken treaty obligations to support the ICC.
All 27 EU member states are parties to the Rome Statute. Within NATO, only the United States and Turkey remain outside the court’s membership.
Washington’s demand that allied governments restrain the tribunal places those countries under pressure to reconcile their commitments to international criminal justice with their defence relationships with the United States.
The ICC’s registrar, Osvaldo Zavala Giler, has urged the European Union to consider activating its blocking legislation, designed to protect European operators against the extraterritorial application of certain foreign sanctions.
Such action would require political decisions in Brussels and would not automatically eliminate the commercial risks associated with American restrictions.
Rubio said the sanctions had been structured to allow member states to negotiate a settlement addressing Washington’s objections. He warned that further measures could follow if those negotiations failed.
Deputy Prosecutor Nazhat Shameem Khan condemned the sanctions and insisted that the court would continue its work.
In her response to the American announcement, Khan described the measures as an attempt to undermine international law and the independence of the judiciary.
She said the court would continue its investigations and prosecutions across all active cases.
Washington’s confrontation with the ICC has intensified since the tribunal issued arrest warrants in November 2024 for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant over alleged crimes committed during the Gaza conflict.
The United States has also opposed investigations involving American military personnel in Afghanistan.
Although neither Washington nor Israel recognises the court’s jurisdiction, the Rome Statute permits the ICC to exercise jurisdiction over certain crimes committed on the territory of member states, irrespective of the nationality of the suspects.
The same jurisdictional principle underpins proceedings against Russian officials over alleged crimes committed in Ukraine.
The ICC issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin in March 2023 over the alleged unlawful deportation and transfer of Ukrainian children.
Friday’s announcement follows a separate escalation in Moscow’s campaign against the tribunal.
As EU Today reported on 9th October, Russian prosecutors have demanded that the Netherlands extradite ICC President Tomoko Akane and eight other current and former court officials.
The requests follow their convictions in absentia by a Moscow court in December 2025 for their involvement in proceedings against Russian officials.
The Netherlands, which hosts the ICC, is not expected to comply with Moscow’s demands.
The Russian and American measures arise from different disputes, but both seek to exert pressure on the tribunal over judicial proceedings involving their respective governments or allies.
The ICC’s earlier condemnation of American sanctions warned that targeting judicial personnel threatened the court’s independence and obstructed access to justice for victims of international crimes.
The American measures were announced hours after South African jurist Navi Pillay, a former ICC appeals judge, was awarded the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize for her contribution to international criminal justice.
Pillay served on the ICC’s Appeals Chamber between 2003 and 2008. The Nobel committee drew attention to political attacks against international judicial institutions in explaining its decision.
The timing was coincidental, with the American sanctions having been prepared before Friday’s award.
The ICC currently has 125 member states and an annual budget of approximately €196 million. Its investigations encompass alleged crimes in Ukraine, the Palestinian territories, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and several other jurisdictions.
The new sanctions could significantly restrict the court’s access to the financial and commercial services on which those investigations depend.
For the European Union, the immediate question is whether its governments will provide practical protection to an institution whose independence they have repeatedly pledged to defend.
Washington has made clear that it expects the opposite: European allies should use their influence to curtail the court’s activities or face further American measures.
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