While the scope of her report centered on examining claims of genocide, United Nations Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese explicitly condemned the crimes committed by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups on Oct. 7, while also calling for the release of all hostages. During remarks to the UN Human rights Council about the report, Albanese stated, “Following nearly six months of unrelenting Israeli assault on occupied Gaza, it is my solemn duty to report on the worst of what humanity is capable of and to present my findings." Israeli officials immediately rejected the report, saying, “The very attempt to level the charge of genocide against Israel is an outrageous distortion of the Genocide Convention. It is an attempt to empty the word genocide of its unique force and special meaning; and turn the Convention itself into a tool of terrorists, who have total disdain for life and for the law, against those trying to defend against them.” Among her top-line findings, Albanese noted that after five months of military operations in Gaza:Amid a growing wave of international disapproval regarding Israel's military operations in Gaza, a leading human rights expert says there exist "reasonable grounds" to classify Israel's conduct as constituting genocide.
Loading...
“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. 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, ethnical, racial or religious group,” as defined in the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, to which both Israel and the U.S. are signatories. Examples listed in the Genocide Convention include:
(a) Killing members of the group
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group Killing members of the group Albanese stated that “deaths resulting from direct actions or arising from neglect, including those caused by deliberate starvation, disease or other survival-threatening conditions imposed on the group” qualify as genocidal actions under the Convention. She also rebutted the often-repeated claim that Israeli forces were only targeting Hamas, explaining that during the first two months of military action, Israel’s army dropped more than 25,000 tons of explosives (the equivalent of two nuclear bombs) on “innumerable buildings” designated as targets by artificial intelligence. Unguided munitions, as well as 2,000-pound “bunker buster” bombs, were dropped on both densely populated areas and “safe zones” where Israeli officials promised safety for fleeing Palestinians, she explained. Aside from the indiscriminate bombing campaign, Albanese remarked, “thousands were killed by bombing, sniper fire or in summary executions.” Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group According to the report, this must involve “a grave and long-term disadvantage to a person’s ability to lead a normal and constructive life. The harm does not need to be permanent or irremediable, and can be brought about by various causes as torture, inhuman or degrading treatment, sexual violence, persecution, deportation or other conditions ‘designed to cause victims’ degradation and deprivation of their rights, and to suppress them and cause inhumane suffering and torture.’” Among other examples inflicted upon the Gazan population, Albanese cites “relentless physical and psychological harm,” including torture of noncombatants, which leads to death, as examples qualifying as genocidal. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part This act, the Special Rapporteur explained, involves conduct that may not directly kill members of a group, but which is capable of leading to physical destruction. Such acts may include starving, dehydrating, destroying items indispensable for survival, forcible displacement, and depriving a group of adequate medical supplies. “Gaza has been completely sacked. Israel’s relentless targeting of all means of basic survival has compromised the ability of Palestinians in Gaza to live on that land,” she wrote. “This engineered collapse of life-sustaining infrastructure corresponds to the stated intentions to make Gaza ‘permanently impossible to live in’ where no human being can exist.” Genocidal Intent “In the latest Gaza assault, direct evidence of genocidal intent is uniquely present. Vitriolic genocidal rhetoric has painted the whole population as the enemy to be eliminated and forcibly displaced,” she explained, citing public statements made by:
