UN official accuses Israel of depriving Palestinians of their liberty
The UN special rapporteur on the Palestinian territories on Monday issued a scathing report accusing Israel of abusing Palestinians and depriving them of liberty.
Francesca Albanese, an Italian lawyer with a long history of hostile statements about the Jewish state, presented the 21-page examination of Israeli policies in Judea and Samaria and Gaza in Geneva.
“A 10,700-word report cannot capture the scale and extent of the arbitrary deprivation of liberty in the occupied Palestinian territory. Nor can it convey the suffering of millions of Palestinians who have, directly or indirectly, been affected,” Albanese writes.
The UN
Special Rapporteur @FranceskAlbs told the @UN_HRC that the widespread & systematic arbitrariness of the occupation’s carceral regime is yet another manifestation of Israel’s inherently illegal occupation & that needs to be brought to an end. pic.twitter.com/aVjCFMb9C8
— UN Palestinian Rights Committee (@UNISPAL) July 10, 2023
The alleged violations inflicted on Palestinians by Israel’s “settler-colonial apartheid regime” may amount to international crimes that could be prosecuted under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, according to Albanese.
The report is a result of a six-month probe conducted from Jordan, and with virtual meetings and tours, due to Israel denying Albanese access to Palestinian areas.
Israel’s mission to the United Nations in Geneva last year accused Albanese of making an antisemitic statement after a Facebook post surfaced that was written during the 2014’s “Operation Protective Edge” accusing the United States of being “subjugated by the Jewish lobby.”
“America and Europe, one of them subjugated by the Jewish Lobby, and the other by the sense of guilt about the Holocaust, remain on the sidelines […],” wrote Albanese.
Pro-Israel NGO The International Legal Forum called the report “yet another display in unvarnished anti-Israel bias and greenlighting of Palestinian terror, that is devoid of reality and absent any shred of legal basis.”
International Legal Forum CEO Arsen Ostrovsky notes that there is not a single reference to Palestinian terror in the report, which instead makes “one absurd, baseless and antisemitic accusation after another.”
The NGO statement again called for her immediate dismissal and elimination of the UN position that she holds.
“It is simply unfathomable that the UN continues to tolerate Ms. Albanese’s unhinged anti-Israel bias and endorsement of terror.”
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