Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, on Monday accused western nations of enabling Israel’s “genocidal machinery” in Gaza through military co-operation, arms sales and sharing intelligence.
Speaking to UN member states in New York by video link from South Africa, Ms Albanese said global military and economic ties have helped to sustain Israel’s campaign in Gaza.
Her report, Gaza Genocide: a Collective Crime, examines the role of more than 60 states in Israel’s actions in Gaza and the West Bank, and calls out the multilateral system for “decades of moral and political failure” in a world order sustained by a global system of complicity.
“Through unlawful actions and deliberate omissions, too many states have harmed, founded and shielded Israel’s militarised apartheid, allowing its settler colonial enterprise to metastasise into genocide, the ultimate crime against the indigenous people of Palestine,” she said.
Israel has, she said, left Gaza “strangled, starved, shattered”.
The report mostly points to the US and European countries, while also naming South Africa — a key coal supplier to Israel — and several Arab states, which she accused of failing to take “decisive action” to stop what it called a genocide.
“The United States alone accounts for two thirds of Israel’s weapon imports,” she said. “Dozens of other countries continue training and supplying arms and surveillance technologies field-tested on Palestinians. Decision makers have thereby exposed themselves to possible accountability before national and international courts.”
Ms Albanese said Israel’s exports had “soared to $474 billion over two years", fuelling its “war economy”. She urged governments to suspend all trade and military agreements with Israel, including those involving “dual-use goods deployable for military purposes".
She accused the EU, which was “quick to sanction Russia over Ukraine”, of remaining Israel’s main trading partner, and condemned what she described as the “weaponisation of aid”, saying the Gaza blockade had gone “largely unchallenged".
Ms Albanese said the world “now stands on a knife-edge between the collapse of the international rule of law and hope for renewal”.
“Renewal is only possible if complicity is confronted, responsibilities are met and justice is upheld,” she added.
Navi Pillay, chairwoman of the UN Commission of Inquiry on Gaza, told member states that Israeli officials had shown a “clear and consistent intent” to establish permanent military control over Gaza and alter its demographics.
“Israeli officials have publicly endorsed plans for deportation, settlement construction and annexation,” Ms Pillay said, adding that while the ceasefire might pause Israel’s territorial ambitions, “recent statements make clear these objectives remain firmly in place".
The session turned tense when Israel’s UN envoy Danny Danon unleashed a blistering personal attack against Ms Albanese, denouncing her report and calling her a “wicked witch".
International human rights expert Chris Sidoti told reporters at the UN that Ms Albanese "has been subjected to attacks that no UN official should be subjected to".
"The Israeli ambassador launched an absolutely outrageous attack on Ms Albanese," he said. "He called her a witch, and the implication was obvious, she should be burnt at the stake.”
The Italian special rapporteur, who has faced diplomatic backlash, including US sanctions, after urging legal and financial action against companies and officials tied to Israel, said such personal vitriol only distracted from the substance of her findings.
She told delegates she had no illusions about the political opposition her report would provoke.
“If the worst thing you can accuse me of is witchcraft, I’ll take it,” Ms Albanese said. “But if I had the power to make spells, I would use it to stop your crimes once and for all and to ensure those responsible end up behind bars.”
