UN expert says Israel seeks 'eradication' of Palestinians

GENEVA: UN rights expert Francesca Albanese reiterated Tuesday that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, charging that the country is seeking the “eradication of Palestinians” from their land.

“Today, the genocide of the Palestinians appears to be the means to an end: the complete removal or eradication of Palestinians from the land so integral to their identity, and which is illegally and openly coveted by Israel,” the independent expert concluded in a fresh report.

Albanese, the UN’s special rapporteur on the rights situation in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, has long faced harsh criticism, allegations of anti-Semitism and demands for her removal, from Israel and some of its allies, over her relentless criticism and longstanding stance.

She was appointed by the UN Human Rights Council but does not speak on behalf of the United Nations.

She charged that the offensive Israel unleashed after the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023 was “part of a long-term international, systematic state-organised forced displacement and replacement of the Palestinians”.

After October 7 attack last year Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 43,020 Palestinians in Gaza, a majority of them civilians, according to figures provided by Gaza’s health ministry which the United Nations considers reliable.

“The Gaza genocide is a tragedy foretold, and one that risks expanding to other Palestinians under Israeli rule,” Albanese wrote in the report, which was dated October 1 but only made public Tuesday.

“Since its establishment, Israel has treated the occupied people as a hated encumbrance and threat to be eradicated, subjecting millions of Palestinians, for generations, to everyday indignities, mass killing, mass incarceration, forced displacement, racial segregation and apartheid,” the report conclusion read.

It said the war was a “furtherance of the political ambitions of Israel for sovereignty over the whole of former Mandatory Palestine”.