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Ramadan Passover Easter 2024 UN accuses Israel of the 'crime of genocide' in Gaza
The United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territory argues that Israel cannot behave as an apartheid state and face no consequences.
UN expert accuses Israel of ‘genocide’ in Gaza
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/3/26/un-expert-accuses-israel-of-several-acts-of-genocide-in-gaza
Francesca Albanese says there are clear indications that Israel has violated three of five acts listed under UN Genocide Convention.
There are “reasonable grounds” to believe Israel is committing genocide in the besieged Palestinian enclave of the Gaza Strip, according to a report issued by a United Nations-appointed expert.
In the report, issued late on Monday, the UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories Francesca Albanese said there are clear indications that Israel has violated three of the five acts listed under the UN Genocide Convention.
Albanese, appointed by the UN Human Rights Council but not an official voice on behalf of the United Nations, said she had found “reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating the commission of … acts of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza has been met”.
“The overwhelming nature and scale of Israel’s assault on Gaza and the destructive conditions of life it has inflicted reveal an intent to physically destroy Palestinians as a group,” she said.
The report was immediately rejected by Israel as an “obscene inversion of reality”.
Entitled Anatomy of a Genocide, the report listed the violating acts as: “killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to the group’s members; and deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part”.
Albanese noted that Israel has killed more than 30,000 Palestinians in Gaza since October 7. A further 12,000 are reported missing, presumed dead under the rubble.
More than 70 percent of the recorded deaths have been women and children and Israel has failed to prove that the remaining 30 percent – adult males – were active Hamas fighters, she said.
Regarding the second violated act, Albanese said Israeli forces have wounded more than 70,000 Palestinians and detained thousands of Palestinian men and boys, subjecting them to torture and mistreatment.
On the third act, Albanese said Israel has destroyed or severely damaged most of Gaza’s life-sustaining infrastructure, including hospitals and agricultural land.
“The incalculable collective trauma will be experienced for generations to come,” Albanese said in a statement.
“Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza is an escalatory stage of a long-standing settler colonial process of erasure,” said said.
Additionally, calls for “violent annihilation” from Israeli high-ranking officials aimed at soldiers on duty on the ground serve as “compelling evidence of explicit and public encouragement to commit genocide,” Albanese added.
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