image source, Getty
The United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, accused Israel of committing acts of “genocide” in Gaza.
Albanese said in a report she submitted to UN member states in Geneva on Tuesday, “She believes that Israel committed acts of genocide in Gaza.”
But Israel rejected the rapporteur’s findings in her report.
For its part, Hamas said that Francesca Albanese’s statements put the international community and the United Nations before a real test to protect humanity.
The movement added in a statement on its Telegram website that “the statements are an additional acknowledgment from a senior UN official that there is sufficient evidence that the Zionist occupation army is committing acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing against our Palestinian people.”
The movement called on the member states of the United Nations to stand up to their responsibilities to prevent acts of genocide that exceeded humanity decades ago.
The statement also called on “the International Criminal Court to move beyond the silence and take urgent action to hold the occupation leaders accountable for the genocide and ethnic cleansing they are committing in the Gaza Strip in full view of the world.”
This report comes amid increasing international pressure on Israel to stop the war or make more efforts to protect civilians.
The Albanese report concluded that “there are reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold for genocide against Palestinians as a group in Gaza has been met.”
Before the Rapporteur could stand on her feet to speak before the member states, Israel rejected what was stated in the report, and its ambassador described it as “a blatant distortion of the Genocide Convention.”
Israel had a position on the agenda of the United Nations Human Rights Council, which permanently devotes an entire section – called Item 7 – to examining the situation in “Palestine and other occupied Arab territories.”
The United Nations did not agree to this item on its agenda, but member states approved it decades ago, and it has never expired. There is no other country in the world that is subject to constant scrutiny like this, which Israel considers “discriminatory, aimed at delegitimizing it.” She always refuses to attend the Council when Item 7 is under discussion.
But many countries, especially Middle Eastern countries, say that “the situation – in the absence of Palestinian self-determination through a two-state solution – requires continued investigations, and now that another conflict has erupted, it has become even more difficult.”
Since the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, Albanese has called for the release of Israeli hostages in Gaza, and she repeated this again in this report in which she strongly condemned “the crimes committed by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups in Israel on October 7.” . She also criticized Israel’s policy in the war on Gaza.
Genocide is a specific legal term, and the Albanese report indicates that some of the legal criteria for it were met in the Gaza war.
She cites what she says is that “Israel’s intention appears to be to destroy the Palestinians in whole or in part, which is a basic provision of the Convention against Genocide.”
In her report, she specifically mentions three elements that point to the possibility of “genocide”:
- Killing members of a group or group of people.
- Causing serious physical or mental harm to members of that group or group.
- Intentionally subjecting a group or community to living conditions intended to destroy it physically, in whole or in part.
The report indicates that the death toll in Gaza has reached record numbers, exceeding 32,000 people so far, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health, in addition to the bombing of densely populated areas, and restrictions imposed on the entry of aid, which the United Nations says have “pushed Gaza to the brink of famine.”
ظهرت في الأصل على www.bbc.com