Dozens of diplomats have thrown their weight behind the UN Special Rapporteur, who said there are “reasonable grounds” to believe that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.
Francesca Albanese told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Tuesday that countries should impose an arms embargo and sanctions on Israel.
Expanding in person on her report released a day earlier, Albanese said Israel was characterizing the entire Gazan population as “targetable, killable and destroyable,” and had ostentatiously laid bare its “genocidal intent” to “rid Palestine of Palestinians.”
“Following nearly six months of unrelenting Israeli assault on occupied Gaza, it is my solemn duty to report on the worst of what humanity is capable of, and to present my findings,” she said.
“There are reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating the commission of the crime of genocide…has been met.”
Egypt, speaking for Arab group countries, affirmed their support for Albanese’s mandate and said they were gravely concerned about Israel’s “structured and systematic attack to make the Gaza Strip uninhabitable.”
Qatar, on behalf of the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council, also thanked Albanese for her report and demanded the international community “put an end to genocide being perpetrated by the Israeli war machinery.”
Pakistan, speaking for the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) at the United Nations on Tuesday, backed Albanese’s call for sanctions and an arms embargo on the usurping Tel Aviv regime.
“We commend your courage in documenting… acts amounting to genocide in Gaza,” Islamabad’s representative said.
“The occupation force’s dangerous and ruthless push for a final solution to the Palestinian question is plain for all to see, as its forces encircle Rafah like vultures and its ravenous land grab continues unabated in the West Bank.”
Albanese told the top UN rights body in her speech that Israel had “destroyed Gaza.”
“When genocidal intent is so conspicuous, so ostentatious, as it is in Gaza, we cannot avert our eyes: we must confront genocide, we must prevent it and we must punish it.
“The genocide in Gaza is the most extreme stage of a long-standing settler-colonial process of erasure of the native Palestinians,” she said.
In the meantime, Russia said it was “horrified” by the Israeli military onslaught against Gaza that had seen “civilian infrastructure targeted,” while China said it was ready to facilitate peace talks.
The European Union also called for “proper and independent investigations on all allegations.”
Israel waged its brutal US-backed war on the Gaza Strip on October 7 after Hamas carried out a historic operation against the usurping entity in retaliation for the regime’s intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.
However, almost six months into the offensive, the Tel Aviv regime has failed to achieve its objectives of “destroying Hamas” and finding Israeli captives despite killing at least 32,414 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injuring 74,787 others.
