The UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in occupied Palestinian territories says the level of oppression Palestinians have experienced in Gaza is unmatched and unprecedented in recent history.
Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian Territories, has said that “in Gaza, Palestinian children are given sedatives to alleviate their pain while dying – as they cannot be treated.”
“80 days of heavy Israeli bombing have devastated the health system. This level of horror is unmatched in our lifetime,” she added.
Albanese also on Tuesday said that the international community’s silence on Israeli crimes against Palestinians has allowed the occupying regime to commit genocide in Gaza, likening the situation in the besieged strip to massacres in other parts of the world such as Srebrenica and Rwanda.
Albanese, who has frequently criticized Israel’s occupation of Palestine and the regime’s relentless crimes against innocent Palestinians, has been barred by the regime from entering the occupied territories since her appointment as the UN special rapporteur in April 2022.
In Gaza, Palestinian children are given sedatives to alleviate their pain while dying -as they cannot be treated. 80days of heavy Israeli bombing have devastated the health system.
This level of horror is unmatched in our lifetime. #CeasefireNOW. https://t.co/l7d1TrhS6R
— Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt (@FranceskAlbs) December 26, 2023
She has also slammed the European Union’s unwavering support for Israel in its aggression on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, and its double standards regarding Palestine and Ukraine.
Tel Aviv was backed by its staunch Western allies, the US and the EU, over the past months.
Albanese also in April had called out Western media for their “misleading” coverage of Israeli military raids, saying such an approach contributes to the regime’s unchecked occupation. She was referring to the headline of a BBC news article that used the word “clashes” to refer to the brutal assault unleashed by Israeli forces against unarmed Palestinian worshippers at al-Aqsa mosque.
Meanwhile, the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) organization also on Wednesday expressed “horror” about the dire situation of the Palestinians trapped in the Gaza Strip, saying the proportions of death and destruction in the genocidal Israeli war are indescribable.
The latest remarks by Albanese come as the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) has said the health system in Gaza was being destroyed as Israel intensifies its aerial and artillery strikes on the besieged Palestinian territory.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus recently said in a social media post on Sunday that the decimation of the Gaza health system was a tragedy. He also reiterated his call for an immediate ceasefire.
The UN health agency has long been sounding the alarm about the state of health care in the besieged territory. Hospitals, protected under international humanitarian law, have repeatedly been hit by Israeli strikes since the war erupted.
Of Gaza’s original 36 hospitals, only nine are now partially functional, all of them in the south and all of them overwhelmed.
The latest remarks by Albanese also come as the Palestinian resistance movement, Hamas, says Israel has stolen the organs of 80 Palestinians whose bodies were abducted by the regime’s invading troops in Gaza.
Hamas, in a statement, condemned Israel’s cruelties after the regime returned the bodies to Gaza in a state of decomposition, which made their identification difficult.
Hamas said, this heinous crime once again proved Israel’s barbarism and moral decline.
Gaza’s government media office also confirmed that the bodies delivered to Gaza were mutilated and their organs were stolen.
It called for an independent international investigation into the abduction of slain Palestinians and the stealing of their organs.
This is not the first time Israel has stolen the organs of dead Palestinians. The regime had in the past admitted that it harvested organs from dead Palestinians.
Day 82 of Israel’s genocidal campaign in the Gaza Strip. The Israeli regime is continuing with its relentless bombardments, killing more innocent women and children.
At least six Palestinians have been killed in the latest air attacks that hit northern Gaza. The Israeli army has also targeted the Nuseirat, Bureij and Maghazi refugee camps.
In the south, the city of Khan Yunis has been the scene of deadly artillery strikes and air raids, the latest of which killed 20 people.
The Palestinian health ministry says the regime has intensified attacks around the Nasser hospital, raising concerns about the lives of thousands of people taking shelter there.
The death toll has now surpassed 21,100.
UN agencies and rights groups have once again denounced the Israeli bloodbath in Gaza and warned about the dire humanitarian situation there.
