Israel seeks to make Gaza City unliveable, says UN expert Francesca Albanese

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By Olivia Le Poidevin

GENEVA (Reuters) – The top U.N. expert on Palestinian rights, Francesca Albanese, said Israel was trying to make Gaza City unliveable in its assault on the enclave’s largest urban area and was endangering the lives of Israeli hostages.

“Israel is bombing using unconventional weapons … it is trying to forcibly evacuate Palestinians. Why? This is the last piece of Gaza that needs to be rendered unliveable before advancing the ethnic cleansing of that piece of land,” Albanese told reporters in Geneva.

The Permanent Mission of Israel to the U.N. rejected Albanese’s comments.

“Her numerous statements have showcased her willingness to go to extreme lengths in (the) delegitimization of the State of Israel,” the Mission said in a statement.

“According to her, Hamas doesn’t embed itself in civilian infrastructure, doesn’t cynically use civilians as human shields, and generally doesn’t really exist,” it added.

Israel says the offensive to take control of Gaza City is part of a plan to defeat Palestinian militant group Hamas for good and that it has warned civilians to head south to a designated humanitarian zone.

However, the U.N. and numerous countries say its tactics amount to forced mass displacement and that conditions in the humanitarian zone are dire, with food in short supply.

Italian lawyer Albanese serves as a special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, one of dozens of experts appointed by the 47-member U.N. Human Rights Council to report on specific global issues.

“The ongoing assault to take the last remnant of Gaza will not only devastate the Palestinians but endanger also the remaining Israeli hostages,” Albanese said.

She accused Israel of genocide and said the international community was complicit.

The nearly two-year campaign in the Palestinian enclave has killed more than 64,000 people, according to local authorities.

Some rights groups like Amnesty International have also accused Israel of committing genocide, but not the United Nations itself. U.N. officials have in the past said it is up to international courts to determine genocide.

Israel rejects the accusation, citing its right to self-defence following the October 7, 2023, attack by Hamas militants that killed 1,200 people and resulted in the capture of 251 hostages, according to Israeli figures.

In July, the U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that Albanese would be added to the U.S. sanctions list for her actions, which he described as prompting illegitimate prosecutions of Israelis at the International Criminal Court.

Albanese said her attempts to travel to New York for the U.N. General Assembly in September to deliver a report do not look promising.

(Reporting by Olivia Le Poidevin, Editing by Miranda Murray and Sharon Singleton)