Israel prevents Albanese from entering the occupied territories (European)
The United Nations Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese, confirmed that there are “logical reasons” to say that Israel has committed many “acts of genocide” leading to ethnic cleansing, in a report published on Monday.
Albanese said - in her report, which she will submit on Tuesday to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva - that “the overwhelming nature and scale of the Israeli attack on Gaza, and the devastating life conditions it caused, reveal an intention to physically destroy the Palestinians as a group.”
The UN expert concluded in her report, titled “Anatomy of a Genocide,” that “there are logical reasons to say that the ceiling has been reached indicating that acts of genocide have been committed against the Palestinians in Gaza.”
Israel has been waging a devastating war on the Gaza Strip for more than 5 months, leaving more than 32,000 martyrs and about 75,000 wounded, most of whom are children and women, amid warnings from international organizations of famine - especially in the northern Gaza Strip - as a result of the occupation restricting the entry of aid.
In her report, the UN rapporteur enumerated three types of acts of genocide: “killing members of the group, causing serious harm to the physical or mental integrity of members of the group, and deliberately subjecting the group to living conditions that would lead to complete or partial physical destruction.”
What is meant here is 3 of the 5 acts of genocide included in the Convention on the Prevention and Protection from the Crime of Genocide.
Israeli response
Israeli representatives to the United Nations in Geneva announced their “complete rejection of the report,” and said in a statement that it forms part of “a campaign aimed at undermining the Jewish state system.”
On February 12, Israel decided to prevent Albanese from entering the occupied territories after statements she made about the Al-Aqsa Flood operation carried out by the Palestinian resistance on October 7, 2023. Israel considered the UN rapporteur’s statements to be “anti-Semitic.”
Albanese confirmed in her new report that “photos of dead civilians after their displacement to the south (in the Gaza Strip), along with statements by some senior Israeli officials declaring their intention to forcibly displace the Palestinians out of Gaza and replace them with Israeli settlers, logically lead to the conclusion that the evacuation orders and security zones Tools were used to carry out genocide leading to ethnic cleansing.”
The report continued, "The acts of genocide were approved and carried out following statements expressing an intention to commit genocide, issued by senior military and government officials."
The rapporteur accused Israel of treating “an entire group” and the infrastructure it uses as “terrorists” or “supporting terrorism,” and thus “turning everyone into a target or collateral damage.”
Albanese stressed in her report that “the Israeli genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza is an additional stage in a long process of erasure carried out by the settlers.”
Source: Al Jazeera + French