The United Nations Special Rapporteur in the occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, said on Tuesday that she believes that the Israeli military aggression in Gaza since October 7 amounts to genocide, and called on countries to immediately impose sanctions and an arms embargo.
Israel, which did not attend the session, rejected the Special Rapporteur's findings.
“It is my solemn duty to report on the worst of what humanity is capable of and to present my findings,” Albanese added before the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, while presenting her report entitled ‘Anatomy of a Genocide'.
She said, “There are reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating the commission of the crime of genocide” against the Palestinians as a group in Gaza “has been met,” noting that “Over 30,000 Palestinians have been killed, including more than 13,000 children. Over 12,000 are presumed dead and 71,000 injured, many with life-changing mutilations.”
She added, “I implore member states to abide by their obligations, which start with imposing an arms embargo and sanctions on Israel and so ensure that the future does not continue to repeat itself.“
Genocide, as defined by the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which was issued following the mass killing of Jews in the Nazi Holocaust, is a “crime committed with the intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, in whole or in part.”
The Israeli diplomatic mission in Geneva said that Israel's war is against the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) and not against Palestinian civilians, and that it broke out due to the movement's militants attacking southern Israel.
The Hamas attack on Israel last October 7 led to the killing of 1,200 people and the kidnapping of 253 hostages, according to Israeli statistics.
“Instead of searching for the truth, this Special Rapporteur is trying to reconcile weak arguments with her obvious distortion of the facts,” she added.
Gulf countries, such as Qatar, and other African countries, such as Algeria and Mauritania, expressed their support for the findings reached by Albanese and their concern about the humanitarian situation.
The seat of the United States, Israel's ally, was empty. Washington previously accused the Council of permanent bias against Israel.
Albanese is one of dozens of independent human rights experts mandated by the United Nations to report and advise on specific topics and crises, and her opinions do not reflect the official opinion of the world body.
