UN expert who pointed out Israel's genocide says she was threatened

A United Nations expert who published a report stating that there were reasonable grounds to believe that Israel committed genocide in Gaza during its military campaign against Hamas said on Wednesday that she had received threats during her tenure.

Francesca Albanese, special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the West Bank and Gaza, presented a report titled “Anatomy of a Genocide” to the UN Human Rights Council on Tuesday, which Israel said it “totally rejects.”

Asked if her work on the report led to her receiving threats, Albanese said: “Yes, I receive threats. Nothing that, so far, I consider needs extra precautions. Pressure? Yes, but that doesn’t change my commitment or the results of my work.”

Albanese, who has held the role since 2022, did not elaborate on the nature of the threats, nor did he say who had made them.

“It’s been a difficult time,” she said. “I have always been attacked since the beginning of my term.”

Israel criticized Albanese, saying she was “delegitimizing the very creation and existence of the State of Israel.” Albanese denied the accusation.

Albanese said one of his main conclusions was that Israel's executive and military leadership and soldiers intentionally “subverted their protective functions in an attempt to legitimize genocidal violence against the Palestinian people.”

“The only reasonable inference that can be drawn from the revelation of this policy is an Israeli state policy of genocidal violence against the Palestinian people in Gaza,” she declared.

Israel's diplomatic mission in Geneva said the use of the word genocide was “outrageous” and asserted that 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 issues and crises. The views expressed by special rapporteurs do not reflect those of the global body as a whole.