A Palestinian child wounded in the Israeli bombardment of Rafah. AP
A Palestinian child wounded in the Israeli bombardment of Rafah. AP
A Palestinian child wounded in the Israeli bombardment of Rafah. AP
A Palestinian child wounded in the Israeli bombardment of Rafah. AP

Israeli campaign in Gaza meets genocide definition, says UN official


Nada AlTaher
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Israel has committed “at least three” of the five acts listed in the Genocide Convention, against Palestinians in Gaza, the UN special rapporteur on Palestinian rights has said.

In a report titled “Anatomy of a Genocide” released on Monday, Francesca Albanese said Israel's actions “have been driven by a genocidal logic”, and accused Israel of distorting international humanitarian law to “legitimise” its violence in Gaza.

“By analysing the patterns of violence and Israel’s policies in its onslaught on Gaza, this report concludes that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating Israel’s commission of genocide is met,” she said.

The report details the Genocide Convention's definition of genocide, which is made up of two interconnected elements: any one of five actions against a group, driven by a general intent to carry out criminal actions and a more specific intent to “destroy the target group as such”.

Ms Albanese found that Israel had committed “at least three” of the five genocidal acts listed: “killing members of the group”, “causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group” and “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part”.

She also found that those actions had been driven by 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,” Ms Albanese said in her report.

'A destroyable target'

Ms Albanese said Israel has blurred the lines between civilian protection and military necessity as stipulated by international humanitarian law by transforming “an entire national group and its inhabited space into a destroyable target”.

Seventy per cent of the recorded deaths in the enclave since the Israeli campaign began have been women and children, she said.

“Israel failed to prove that the remaining 30 per cent, ie adult males, were active Hamas combatants – a necessary condition for them to be lawfully targeted,” the report read.

Israel assigned all adult men “active fighter status by default” in December last year when it said it had killed more than 7,000 “terrorists”, although men comprised less than 5,000 of the casualties at the time.

Israel was “thus implying that all adult males killed were terrorists”, the report said.

The report referred to inflammatory statements by senior Israeli officials, such as when President Isaac Herzog blamed “an entire nation” for the Hamas attacks on October 7.

Three days after the attacks, Israeli military spokesman Admiral Daniel Hagari said Israel should focus on causing “maximum damage”, which Ms Albanese said demonstrates “a strategy of disproportionate and indiscriminate violence”.

She said such messages of “annihilatory violence” constitute strong incitement by senior officials to commit genocide.

Israel has also characterised Gazan civilians as human shields on a macro level, Ms Albanese said, quoting a November report by the Israeli Foreign Ministry, in which it accused Hamas of using “the civilian population as human shields”.

She said Israel's all-encompassing use of “the” in reference to the enclave's residents shows intent to “transform the entire Gaza population and its infrastructure into a legitimate, targetable shield”.

By further linking churches, mosques, schools, UN buildings, universities, hospitals and ambulances to Hamas, Israel reinforces a view of the Gazan population as “complicit” and therefore “killable”, Ms Albanese said.

Displaced Palestinians collect food donated by a charity during Ramadan in Rafah. AFP
Displaced Palestinians collect food donated by a charity during Ramadan in Rafah. AFP

She said Israel had justified the destruction of tower blocks with civilians inside by arguing that “Hamas is everywhere” in Gaza. She pointed to an October 25 air strike on Gaza city's Al Taj tower, which killed 101 people, including 44 children and 37 women.

Israel has argued that a strike causing more civilian casualties than anticipated does not necessarily represent a breach of international law, because “compliance is conduct-orientated, not result orientated”.

However, Ms Albanese said that in strikes such as the one on Al Taj tower, carried out without warning, “extensive civilian harm has been anticipated as the main outcome”.

Israel's classification of such acts as “lawful” shows that it operates by “condoning mass killing” as a policy, she added.

Palestinian women and children flee from their homes after an Israeli air strike in Gaza city. AFP
Palestinian women and children flee from their homes after an Israeli air strike in Gaza city. AFP

In her report, Ms Albanese pointed to Israeli attacks on areas designated as “safe-zones”, where Palestinians were sent during the evacuation of northern Gaza.

She said that after ordering people to leave the north, Israel “illegally categorised” those who remained as human shields and accomplices of terrorism, including those who were unable to leave due to injury, illness or old age.

“This policy points to the intention by Israel to 'transform' hundreds of thousands of civilians into 'legitimate' military targets or collateral casualties through impossible-to-follow evacuation orders,” Ms Albanese said.

She also quoted Israeli officials who had called for Gazans to be displaced into Egypt's Sinai peninsula, western countries and elsewhere.

Strikes on “safe zones” and calls for forcible displacement make it possible “to reasonably infer that evacuation orders and safe zones have been used as genocidal tools to achieve ethnic cleansing”, Ms Albanese said.

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No_One Ever Really Dies

N*E*R*D

(I Am Other/Columbia)

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As You Were

Liam Gallagher

(Warner Bros)

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Another way to earn air miles

In addition to the Emirates and Etihad programmes, there is the Air Miles Middle East card, which offers members the ability to choose any airline, has no black-out dates and no restrictions on seat availability. Air Miles is linked up to HSBC credit cards and can also be earned through retail partners such as Spinneys, Sharaf DG and The Toy Store.

An Emirates Dubai-London round-trip ticket costs 180,000 miles on the Air Miles website. But customers earn these ‘miles’ at a much faster rate than airline miles. Adidas offers two air miles per Dh1 spent. Air Miles has partnerships with websites as well, so booking.com and agoda.com offer three miles per Dh1 spent.

“If you use your HSBC credit card when shopping at our partners, you are able to earn Air Miles twice which will mean you can get that flight reward faster and for less spend,” says Paul Lacey, the managing director for Europe, Middle East and India for Aimia, which owns and operates Air Miles Middle East.

The Bio

Hometown: Bogota, Colombia
Favourite place to relax in UAE: the desert around Al Mleiha in Sharjah or the eastern mangroves in Abu Dhabi
The one book everyone should read: 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It will make your mind fly
Favourite documentary: Chasing Coral by Jeff Orlowski. It's a good reality check about one of the most valued ecosystems for humanity

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Citizenship-by-investment programmes

United Kingdom

The UK offers three programmes for residency. The UK Overseas Business Representative Visa lets you open an overseas branch office of your existing company in the country at no extra investment. For the UK Tier 1 Innovator Visa, you are required to invest £50,000 (Dh238,000) into a business. You can also get a UK Tier 1 Investor Visa if you invest £2 million, £5m or £10m (the higher the investment, the sooner you obtain your permanent residency).

All UK residency visas get approved in 90 to 120 days and are valid for 3 years. After 3 years, the applicant can apply for extension of another 2 years. Once they have lived in the UK for a minimum of 6 months every year, they are eligible to apply for permanent residency (called Indefinite Leave to Remain). After one year of ILR, the applicant can apply for UK passport.

The Caribbean

Depending on the country, the investment amount starts from $100,000 (Dh367,250) and can go up to $400,000 in real estate. From the date of purchase, it will take between four to five months to receive a passport. 

Portugal

The investment amount ranges from €350,000 to €500,000 (Dh1.5m to Dh2.16m) in real estate. From the date of purchase, it will take a maximum of six months to receive a Golden Visa. Applicants can apply for permanent residency after five years and Portuguese citizenship after six years.

“Among European countries with residency programmes, Portugal has been the most popular because it offers the most cost-effective programme to eventually acquire citizenship of the European Union without ever residing in Portugal,” states Veronica Cotdemiey of Citizenship Invest.

Greece

The real estate investment threshold to acquire residency for Greece is €250,000, making it the cheapest real estate residency visa scheme in Europe. You can apply for residency in four months and citizenship after seven years.

Spain

The real estate investment threshold to acquire residency for Spain is €500,000. You can apply for permanent residency after five years and citizenship after 10 years. It is not necessary to live in Spain to retain and renew the residency visa permit.

Cyprus

Cyprus offers the quickest route to citizenship of a European country in only six months. An investment of €2m in real estate is required, making it the highest priced programme in Europe.

Malta

The Malta citizenship by investment programme is lengthy and investors are required to contribute sums as donations to the Maltese government. The applicant must either contribute at least €650,000 to the National Development & Social Fund. Spouses and children are required to contribute €25,000; unmarried children between 18 and 25 and dependent parents must contribute €50,000 each.

The second step is to make an investment in property of at least €350,000 or enter a property rental contract for at least €16,000 per annum for five years. The third step is to invest at least €150,000 in bonds or shares approved by the Maltese government to be kept for at least five years.

Candidates must commit to a minimum physical presence in Malta before citizenship is granted. While you get residency in two months, you can apply for citizenship after a year.

Egypt 

A one-year residency permit can be bought if you purchase property in Egypt worth $100,000. A three-year residency is available for those who invest $200,000 in property, and five years for those who purchase property worth $400,000.

Source: Citizenship Invest and Aqua Properties

Updated: March 27, 2024, 8:39 AM