Francesca Albanese had stated there were clear indications Israel has violated three acts in the UN Genocide Convention.
A United Nations expert who published a report saying there were reasonable grounds to believe Israel has committed genocide in its war on Gaza says she has received threats throughout her mandate.
Francesca Albanese, the special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territories, presented a report entitled âAnatomy of a Genocideâ to the UN Human Rights Council on Tuesday, which Israel said it âutterly rejectsâ.
In the report, Albanese said there are clear indications that Israel has violated three of the five acts listed under the UN Genocide Convention in its war on Gaza.
Asked whether her work on the report had caused her to receive threats, Albanese said: âYes, I do receive threats. Nothing that so far I considered needing extra precautions. Pressure? Yes, and it doesnât change either my commitment or the results of my work.â
Albanese, who has held the position since 2022, did not elaborate on the nature of the threats, nor did she say who had issued them.
âItâs been a difficult time,â she said. âIâve always been attacked since the very beginning of my mandate.â
Israel has criticised Albanese, saying she was âdelegitimising the very creation and existence of the State of Israelâ. Albanese denied the accusation.
Albanese said one of her key findings was that Israelâs executive and military leadership and soldiers have intentionally âsubverted their protection functions in an attempt to legitimise genocidal violence against the Palestinian peopleâ.
âThe only reasonable inference that can be drawn from the unveiling of this policy is an Israeli state policy of genocidal violence toward the Palestinian people in Gaza,â she said, adding that it was a âlong-standing settler colonial process of erasureâ.
She called for the âongoing Nakbaâ to stop, referring to the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948.
Israelâs diplomatic mission in Geneva said the use of the word genocide was âoutrageousâ and said the war was against Hamas and not Palestinian civilians.
Albanese, an Italian lawyer and academic, is one of dozens of independent human rights experts mandated by the United Nations to report on specific themes and crises.
The views expressed by special rapporteurs do not reflect those of the global body as a whole.