Geneva: Europe and the Arabs
"The genocide in Gaza is a declared tragedy that may expand to include other Palestinians under Israeli rule," said Francesca Albanese, the independent UN expert. "The pursuit of the goal of 'Greater Israel' threatens to wipe out the indigenous Palestinian population." This is what the UN Independent Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, stated in a report she submitted to the General Assembly entitled: "Genocide as colonial erasure." According to the UN daily news bulletin, a copy of which we received this morning.
The international expert stressed in her report the need to view "Israel's genocidal behavior, which is obscured by false Israeli narratives about a war it waged in 'self-defense,' in a broader context as multiple acts targeting Palestinians as (the people as a whole) in all the territories in which they reside, in order to further Israel's political ambitions to extend sovereignty over all of formerly mandated Palestine." “We see not only the past reproducing itself in the occupied Palestinian territory, but also the same indifference and the ability to turn a blind eye on the part of many member states and the international community and a complete collapse of the international order based on the principle of ‘no repetition’ that the world promised after World War II and especially after the Holocaust,” Albanese said at a press conference at UN headquarters.

Concern over ‘questioning of international law’

She said it was “deeply disturbing to see member states obscuring and questioning the meaning of international law and working to dehumanize the victims of the past year.”

This report follows her previous report to the Human Rights Council in March, in which she concluded that there were “reasonable grounds to believe that Israel committed acts of genocide in Gaza.”
She said she had continued to investigate what happened in Gaza and also in the rest of the occupied Palestinian territory after submitting that report. “I can say that for more than a year I have been calling on all concerned parties, especially those states that can exert more influence over the State of Israel, to take concrete steps to stop the destruction of the Palestinian people, to secure the immediate and unconditional release of all Israeli and Palestinian hostages and to ensure respect for international law,” she added.
She noted that if international law had been respected – at least over the past 12 months – what was happening in Gaza, which she said should have stopped, would have been stopped. “It should have been stopped by the Security Council last October. It should have been stopped after the first set of provisional measures issued by the International Court of Justice. It should have stopped when I submitted my first report. It should have stopped before the invasion of Rafah or before the invasion of Lebanon,” she said.

She pointed to what she called the justification of a small but influential number of states that she said were continuing to enable and sponsor what she called “Israeli arrogance that is driving Israel’s behaviour as we speak.” A horrific situation on the ground
The UN rapporteur described the developments on the ground as horrific, saying that the “genocidal violence” she described in her first report had expanded and spread to other parts of the occupied Palestinian territory, and continued by saying:

“If you look at the patterns of violence and the destruction of civilian infrastructure, roads, power grids, water pipelines, water tanks and homes, and if you look at the numbers of extrajudicial killings in the West Bank, in addition to the killing of 42,000 Palestinians in Gaza, including 17,000 children, how do you explain the killing of more than 700 Palestinians in the West Bank, including 170 children? How do you explain the fact that Palestinians from the West Bank were subjected to the same practices and violations, often rape among other forms of torture, if there was no military action or military presence of Hamas in the West Bank, does the former not justify what Israel did in Gaza?”

The independent expert said in her report that the “ongoing genocide” is the result of Israel being granted “exceptional status and its long-standing impunity.”
Among the recommendations in her report, Francesca Albanese urged UN member states to use all their political influence – starting with a full arms embargo and sanctions – to ensure that “Israel ceases its aggression against the Palestinians, accepts a ceasefire and withdraws completely from the occupied Palestinian territory.”
She called for formal recognition of Israel “as an apartheid state that continues to violate international law, reactivates the UN Special Committee against Apartheid to address the situation in Palestine, and warns Israel of the possibility of suspending its membership in accordance with Article 6 of the UN Charter.”
She also called on states to support the deployment of an international preventive presence throughout the occupied Palestinian territory, and to establish a framework for the protection of Palestinians displaced outside the Gaza Strip.

Special rapporteurs and independent experts are appointed by the Human Rights Council in Geneva, an intergovernmental body responsible for the promotion and protection of human rights around the world. The rapporteurs and experts are tasked with examining human rights situations and reporting on them to the Human Rights Council. It should be noted that this position is honorary, as these experts are not considered employees of the United Nations and do not receive a salary for their work.