Iran says governments and international bodies face the judgement of history to deliver on their human responsibilities after a UN expert admits that Israel’s onslaught on Gaza amounts to genocide.
“The Zionist regime’s crime of genocide against the Palestinians has now been confirmed and clearly stipulated by the UN special rapporteur,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kan’ani wrote on X Thursday.h
In a report titled “The Anatomy of a Genocide” to the Human Rights Council in Geneva Tuesday, UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in the Occupied Territories Francesca Albanese called on countries to immediately impose sanctions and an arms embargo on Israel.
“National governments and international political and legal associations and institutions now face the judgment of not only world public opinion but also history. Will they fulfill their human, legal and historical responsibility?” Kan’ani said.
The 1948 Genocide Convention defines genocide as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”.
Citing more than 30,000 Palestinians killed by Israel among other acts, Albanese said, “I find that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating the commission of the crime of genocide against Palestinians as a group in Gaza has been met.”
“I implore member states to abide by their obligations, which start with imposing an arms embargo and sanctions on Israel and so ensure that the future does not continue to repeat itself,” she said, prompting a burst of applause.
Albanese, an Italian lawyer, is one of dozens of independent human rights experts mandated by the United Nations to report and advise on specific themes and crises.
As she addressed the UN’s top human rights body, the seats for the United States were left empty. Washington has previously accused the council of a chronic anti-Israel bias.
