U.N. rights expert Francesca Albanese reiterated Tuesday her allegation that Israel is committing "genocide" in Gaza, accusing the country of aiming for the "eradication of Palestinians" from their land.
"Today, the genocide of the Palestinians appears to be the means to an end: the complete removal or eradication of Palestinians from the land so integral to their identity, and which is illegally and openly coveted by Israel," the independent expert concluded in a fresh report.
Albanese, the U.N.'s special rapporteur on the rights situation in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, has long been targeted by an Israeli defamation campaign for her harsh criticism of the country.
She was appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Council but does not speak on behalf of the United Nations.
She charged that the Israeli offensive unleashed after the Hamas incursion of Oct. 7, 2023, was "part of a long-term international, systematic state-organized forced displacement and replacement of the Palestinians."
Israel's genocidal war since has killed over 43,020 Palestinians in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the territory's Health Ministry which the United Nations considers reliable.
"The Gaza genocide is a tragedy foretold, and one that risks expanding to other Palestinians under Israeli rule," Albanese wrote in the report, which was dated Oct. 1 but only made public Tuesday.
"Since its establishment, Israel has treated the occupied people as a hated encumbrance and threat to be eradicated, subjecting millions of Palestinians, for generations, to everyday indignities, mass killing, mass incarceration, forced displacement, racial segregation and apartheid," the report conclusion read.
It said the war was a "furtherance of the political ambitions of Israel for sovereignty over the whole of former Mandatory Palestine."
