Francesca Albanese warns Israel’s ‘genocidal violence’ risks spreading beyond Gaza

Independent UN expert Francesca Albanese has warned that Israel’s “genocidal violence” in Gaza risked spreading to other parts of the occupied Palestinian territories. It comes amid the IDF’s large-scale military operation in the occupied West Bank.

UN’s Francesca Albanese: not holding back over Israel

Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on the rights situation in the Palestinian territories, warned in a statement that Israel’s recent intensification of its operations in the occupied West Bank, which is separated from Gaza by Israeli territory, marked “a dangerous escalation”.

She said:

Israel’s genocidal violence risks leaking out of Gaza and into the occupied Palestinian territory as a whole. The writing is on the wall, and we cannot continue to ignore it. There is mounting evidence that no Palestinian is safe under Israel’s unfettered control.

Francesca Albanese is an independent expert appointed by the UN Human Rights Council but who does not speak on behalf of the UN. She has repeatedly accused Israel of committing genocide in its war in Gaza.

Israeli violence has surged in the West Bank. The Ramallah-based Palestinian health ministry said on Monday 2 September that Israel had killed at least 26 Palestinians since last Wednesday, when the IDF launched simultaneous raids across the northern West Bank.

As the Canary previously reported, Israel killed at least 10 Palestinians on Wednesday 28 August in its raids and strikes in the occupied West Bank. The Red Crescent added that 15 other people have been wounded. Two Palestinians were killed in the city of Jenin, four others in a nearby village, and four more in a refugee camp near the town of Tubas.

Middle Eastern and Western governments as well as UN officials have called on Israel to end the large-scale operations in the Palestinian territory, which it has illegally occupied since 1967.

Israel: enacting a ‘process of elimination’

Francesca Albanese said:

Apartheid Israel is targeting Gaza and the West Bank simultaneously, as part of an overall process of elimination, replacement and territorial expansion.

The long-standing impunity granted to Israel is enabling the de-Palestinisation of the occupied territory, leaving Palestinians at the mercy of the forces pursuing their elimination as a national group.

She called on the international community to:

do everything it can to immediately end the risk of genocide against the Palestinian people under Israel’s occupation, ensure accountability and ultimately end Israel’s colonisation of Palestinian territory.

Israel’s genocide in Gaza has so far killed at least 40,786 people in Gaza. The UN rights office says most of the dead are women and children.

Featured image via the Canary

Additional reporting via Agence France-Presse