The UN Human Rights Council’s special rapporteur on the Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese, said on March 25 that there were “reasonable grounds” to conclude that Israel has committed acts that amount to “genocide” in its military operations in the Gaza Strip, and warned of the risk of “ethnic cleansing.”
Albanese said it was clear that Israel was violating three of the five acts outlined in the UN Genocide Convention in Gaza.
The report listed violations as “the killing of members of a group,” “the infliction of serious physical or mental harm on members of a group,” and “the imposition of living conditions designed to bring about the physical destruction of all or part of the group.”
Furthermore, in response to some senior Israeli government officials’ announcements of the forced relocation of Palestinians and the expansion of Israeli settlements, the report denounced them as “using evacuation orders and safe zones as tools of genocide to achieve ethnic cleansing.”
UN Special Rapporteurs are appointed by the UN Human Rights Council but do not represent the United Nations.
The Israeli delegation in Geneva, Switzerland, said its country “categorically rejects the contents of the report” and that it “is merely part of an attempt to negate the very establishment of the State of Israel.”
“Israel’s war is against (Islamic group) Hamas, not against the Palestinian people,” he said.
A US official told AFP that they were aware of the report but “have no reason to believe that Israel has committed mass killings in Gaza.”
Source: Japanese