Israel rejects UN expert’s report as a disgrace
Published: Tuesday, Mar 26th 2024, 02:01
Retour au fil d'actualité
Israel's diplomatic mission to the United Nations in Geneva has described the report of a UN human rights expert on the Gaza war as a disgrace to the Human Rights Council. "The report is therefore an obscene inversion of reality in which a so-called expert can make outrageous accusations, the more extreme the better," the mission wrote on the X platform (formerly Twitter) on Monday. According to media reports, UN human rights expert Francesca Albanese had previously accused Israel of committing genocide in the Gaza Strip in a preliminary version and described the establishment of the Jewish state as a "settlement colonialist project". Albanese does not speak for the UN.
The UN Special Rapporteur went on to write that genocide had always been "an inevitable part of Israel's formation" and claimed that "practices that led to the mass ethnic cleansing of the non-Jewish population of Palestine took place in the years 1947-1949". The original version of the report "Anatomy of a Genocide", which was commissioned by the Human Rights Council, the highest human rights body of the United Nations, was not initially available. The Italian lawyer is the UN Human Rights Council's rapporteur on the human rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territories. The Israeli government has long accused her of being biased in favor of the Palestinians.
Israel's representation at the UN further stated 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. It is clear from the report that the special rapporteur started from the conclusion that Israel was committing genocide. She then tried to "substantiate her distorted and politically motivated views with weak arguments and justifications". It is clear from her previous statements before and after the massacre on 7 October that she is continuing her campaign to delegitimize the establishment and existence of the State of Israel under the guise of the UN.
Albanese's report also states that Israel's actions show a pattern of violence. After five months of military operations, Israel has destroyed Gaza. More than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed, 70 percent of residential areas destroyed and 80 percent of the population forcibly displaced.
©Keystone/SDA
French 
English 
German 
Spanish 
Arabic