There are “reasonable grounds” to believe that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories said.
Francesca Albanese was speaking at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, where she presented her latest report, entitled ‘Anatomy of a Genocide’, during an interactive dialogue with Member States.
Francessa Albanese’s damning report to the UN sheds light on the dire situation in Gaza. With over 30,000 Palestinians killed, including thousands of children, and countless others injured or displaced, the report paints a grim picture of the devastation caused by Israel’s actions.
THREE ACTS COMMITTED
Citing international law, Ms. Albanese explained that genocide is defined as a specific set of acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.
“Specifically, Israel has committed three acts of genocide with the requisite intent: causing seriously serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part, and imposing measures intended to prevent birth within the group,” she said.
Furthermore, “the genocide in Gaza is the most extreme stage of a long-standing settler colonial process of erasure of the native Palestinians,” she continued.
THE ONGOING STRUGGLE FOR PALESTINIAN RIGHTS
“For over 76 years, this process has oppressed the Palestinians as a people in every way imaginable, crushing their inalienable right to self-determination demographically, economically, territorially, culturally and politically.”
She said the “colonial amnesia of the West has condoned Israel’s colonial settler project”, adding that “the world now sees the bitter fruit of the impunity afforded to Israel. This was a tragedy foretold.”
Ms. Albanese said denial of the reality and the continuation of Israel’s impunity and exceptionalism is no longer viable, especially in light of the binding UN Security Council resolution, adopted on Monday, which called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
