Enlarge image

Francesca Albanese (in November 2023 in Canberra, Australia)

Photo: Mick Tsikas/dpa

Israel's diplomatic mission to the United Nations in Geneva has described a report by a UN human rights expert on the Gaza war as a disgrace for the Human Rights Council.

"The report is therefore an obscene reversal of reality, in which a so-called expert can make outrageous accusations, the more extreme the better," the representation wrote on Monday on the platform X (formerly Twitter).

According to media reports, the independent human rights expert Francesca Albanese had previously accused Israel of committing genocide in the Gaza Strip in a still preliminary version and described the founding of the Jewish state as a "settlement-colonialist project." It also suggests an arms embargo against Israel. Albanese does not speak for the UN as a whole.

The original report “Anatomy of a Genocide,” which was prepared on behalf of the Human Rights Council, the highest human rights body of the United Nations, was not initially available. The paper, which could be viewed in advance by the British "Guardian" among others, is due to be presented to the UN Human Rights Council on Tuesday.

Israel works on the Italian

The Italian lawyer has been the UN Human Rights Council's rapporteur on the human rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territories since 2022. The Israeli government has long accused it of being biased in favor of the Palestinians. Albanese came under fire at the beginning of February when she claimed that the Hamas terrorist attack on October 7th was not motivated by anti-Semitic sentiment. Israel banned them from entering the country.

Israel's UN mission further said that Albanese aimed to tell a story in which the Islamist Hamas, its abuse of civilians and civilian infrastructure and its utter brutality simply disappear. The report made it clear that the Special Rapporteur's conclusion was that Israel was committing genocide. She then tried to "back up her distorted and politically motivated views with weak arguments and justifications."

Albanese's report goes on to say that Israel's actions show patterns of violence. After five months of military operations, Israel destroyed Gaza. Among other things, more than 30,000 Palestinians were killed, 70 percent of residential areas were destroyed and 80 percent of the population were forcibly displaced.

jok/dpa