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United Nations Special Rapporteur on Occupied Palestine Francesca Albanese speaks during a “Stop Genocide, Free Palestine” meeting in Madrid, Spain, on June 23, 2025.Marcos del Mazo \/ LightRocket via Getty Images<\/h5>\nTruthout is a vital news source and a living history of political struggle. If you think our work is valuable,\u00a0<\/i>support us with a donation<\/i><\/a>\u00a0of any size.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The day after Donald Trump welcomed\u00a0indicted war criminal<\/a>\u00a0Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the United States for the third time in less than six months, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio imposed\u00a0sanctions<\/a>\u00a0against UN Special Rapporteur on Occupied Palestine Francesca Albanese for her clear-eyed critiques of Israel\u2019s genocide.<\/p>\n In a July 9\u00a0press statement<\/a>, Rubio charged that Albanese \u201chas directly engaged with the International Criminal Court (ICC) in efforts to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute nationals of the United States or Israel, without the consent of those two countries.\u201d He alleged that Albanese \u201chas spewed unabashed antisemitism, expressed support for terrorism, and open contempt for the United States, Israel, and the West \u2026 including recommending that the ICC, without a legitimate basis, issue arrest warrants\u201d for Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.<\/p>\n \u201cNo comment on mafia style intimidation techniques,\u201d Albanese\u00a0responded<\/a>\u00a0to the sanctions in a text message to\u00a0Al Jazeera<\/em>. \u201cBusy reminding member states of their obligations to stop and punish genocide. And those who profit from it.\u201d She\u00a0queried<\/a>\u00a0why she had been sanctioned: \u201cfor having exposed a genocide? For having denounced the system? They never challenged me on the facts.\u201d<\/p>\n In the height of irony, war criminal Netanyahu nominated serial lawbreaker Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize. But it is Albanese who deserves that prize.<\/p>\n \u201cThe UN Special Rapporteur on Occupied Palestine deserves the Nobel Peace Prize, not the U.S. punitive pushback by way of targeted sanctions denying her entry into the country and freezing any American assets she may have,\u201d Richard Falk, who served as UN Special Rapporteur on Occupied Palestine from 2008 to 2014, told Truthout.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cThis was an intimidating attack on Albanese, an unpaid civil servant, for her brave truth-telling and expert knowledge fully in accord with expectations of the job to report periodically to the UN Human Rights Council and the General Assembly,\u201d Falk added. \u201cHer well-documented reports have broken the mainstream silence in the West on Israel\u2019s genocidal assault, carried out before the eyes and ears of the world, shocking many by its transparency and sadism over a period of more than 20 months.\u00a0<\/em>She has also exposed shameful patterns of U.S. complicity with Israeli criminality.\u201d<\/p>\n In the height of irony, war criminal Netanyahu nominated serial lawbreaker Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize. But it is Albanese who deserves that prize.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n As they dined together in Washington, Netanyahu\u00a0told<\/a>\u00a0Trump he had nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize. The nomination, which Netanyahu sent to the Nobel Committee 10 days after the U.S. bombed nuclear facilities in Iran,\u00a0rewarded Trump<\/a>\u00a0for his unwavering support for the crimes of the Zionist regime in both Palestine and Iran. Trump has continued and increased Joe Biden\u2019s financial, political, and diplomatic assistance to Israel\u2019s (now) 21-month-long genocide in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, which has killed more than 58,000 Palestinians. Trump also dutifully complied with Netanyahu\u2019s plea to bomb Iranian nuclear sites, dropping several 30,000-pound bunker buster bombs on Iran. U.S. participation in Israel\u2019s international crimes is\u00a0patently illegal<\/a>.<\/p>\n On July 1, 2024, Albanese filed her report \u201cAnatomy of a Genocide<\/a>\u201d with the UN Human Rights Council. The summary begins, \u201cAfter five months of military operations, Israel has destroyed Gaza.\u201d That was one year ago. Not content with destroying Gaza, Israel continues to slaughter, starve, and displace the Palestinian people.<\/p>\n In this report, Albanese thoroughly documents Israel\u2019s commission of genocide which is prohibited by the\u00a0Genocide Convention<\/a>. She cites the International Court of Justice\u2019s (ICJ\u2019s) order that Israel prevent and punish genocide and ensure humanitarian aid, which Israel has ignored. Albanese finds that \u201cIsrael has strategically invoked the international humanitarian law framework as \u2018humanitarian camouflage\u2019 to legitimize its genocidal violence in Gaza.\u201d Israel, she charges, \u201cappears to represent itself as conducting a \u2018proportionate genocide.\u2019\u201d The crime of genocide, Albanese notes, entails \u201cboth individual and State responsibility.\u201d<\/p>\n Israel\u2019s actions \u201chave been driven by a genocidal logic integral to its settler-colonial project in Palestine, signalling a tragedy foretold,\u201d Albanese continues. \u201c[D]isplacing and erasing the Indigenous Arab presence,\u201d she writes, \u201chas been an inevitable part of the forming of Israel as a \u2018Jewish State.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Since illegally acquiring Palestinian territory by force in 1967, \u201cIsrael has advanced its settler-colonial project through military occupation, stripping the Palestinian people of their right to self-determination,\u201d the report reads. \u201cGenocide cannot be justified under any circumstances, including purported self-defence.\u201d The ICJ has repeatedly held that Israel, as occupier, does not have a right to self-defense against the occupied Palestinians.<\/p>\n Albanese recommends that UN member states immediately implement an arms embargo on Israel, and investigate and prosecute war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide under principles of\u00a0universal jurisdiction<\/a>.<\/p>\n On October 1, 2024, Albanese filed her report \u201cGenocide as Colonial Erasure<\/a>.\u201d In it, she expands her analysis of Israel\u2019s genocide beyond the July 1 report. She cites the ICJ\u2019s Advisory Opinion of July 2024, finding Israel\u2019s occupation of Palestinian territory illegal, and reaffirming that the unlawfulness of the occupation \u201cvitiates [Israel\u2019s] claims of purported self-defence.\u201d Albanese writes that \u201cthe only lawful recourse available to Israel is its unconditional withdrawal from the whole of that territory.\u201d<\/p>\n When this report was filed, at least 90 percent of Palestinians in Gaza had been forcibly displaced, \u201cmany more than 10 times,\u201d Albanese writes. Israeli officials and religious leaders \u201ccontinue to encourage erasure and dispossession of Palestinians, setting new thresholds for acceptable violence against civilians. The Nakba, which has been ongoing since 1948, has been deliberately accelerated.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAs Israeli leaders promised,\u201d Albanese writes, \u201cGaza has been made unfit for human life.\u201d She found \u201can intent to destroy [the] population [of Gaza] through starvation \u2026 Hungry crowds waiting for food have been massacred.\u201d<\/p>\n Indeed, between May 27, when the\u00a0sham Gaza Humanitarian Foundation<\/a>\u00a0(GHF) began operations, and July 7, the UN Human Rights Office\u00a0documented<\/a>\u00a0798 killings \u201cincluding 615 in the vicinity of the GHF sites and 183 presumably on the routes of aid convoys.\u201d The deaths were mostly due to gunshot injuries received while trying to access aid.<\/p>\n Albanese characterized \u201cthe pattern of targeting children\u201d as \u201cshocking.\u201d Moreover, she concludes, \u201cThe overall aim is to humiliate and degrade Palestinians as a whole,\u201d citing sadistic torture en masse, piling up decomposing bodies in the street, \u201cyoung children left limbless before they could even crawl,\u201d and the destruction of homes so the people have nowhere to return to.<\/p>\n The report finds that \u201c[c]ontinual, unproven attributions of Hamas affiliation \u2026 help disguise the systematic targeting of civilians, de facto erasing Palestinian civilian-ness altogether.\u201d It states that \u201cThe State of Israel is predicated on the goal of Palestinian erasure; its entire political system is directed towards this goal.\u201d<\/p>\n Indeed, a centerpiece of the recent talks between Trump and Netanyahu was the complete ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza. They\u00a0referred to<\/a>\u00a0\u201cTrump\u2019s vision of relocating Gazans,\u201d with Netanyahu claiming that they were \u201cgetting close to finding several countries\u201d to accept Palestinians who want to leave the Gaza Strip, although no country has publicly agreed to do so. Netanyahu asserted that the plans for forced relocation would give the Palestinians the \u201cfreedom to choose<\/a>\u201d whether to leave Gaza.<\/p>\n \u201cFreedom to choose is so Orwellian,\u201d Peter Beinart, editor-at-large at\u00a0Jewish Currents,<\/em>\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a0Democracy Now!\u00a0<\/em>\u201cPalestinians have actually been \u2026 asking for the freedom to choose, the real freedom to choose, since 1948, because the vast majority of Palestinians in Gaza are not from Gaza.\u201d He added, \u201cThey were expelled from their homes in what\u2019s now Israel \u2026 So, they do want the freedom to choose. They want the freedom to return to the places from which their families were expelled.\u201d<\/p>\n Albanese urges UN member states to initiate a full arms embargo and sanctions against Israel; formally recognize Israel as an apartheid state; support the deployment of an international protection force in the Occupied Palestinian Territory; develop a protective framework for Palestinians who are displaced outside Gaza; support independent and thorough criminal investigations of apartheid and genocide; investigate and prosecute corporations involved in crimes in the Occupied Palestinian Territory; and ensure unhindered humanitarian aid to Gaza. She also urges the ICC prosecutor to investigate Israel genocide and apartheid.<\/p>\n Albanese\u2019s most recent report, \u201cFrom Economy of Occupation to Economy of Genocide<\/a>,\u201d was filed on June 30. \u201cArms companies have turned near-record profits by equipping Israel with cutting-edge weaponry to unleash 85,000 tons of explosives \u2014 six times the power of Hiroshima \u2014 to destroy Gaza,\u201d she\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0when presenting her report to the UN Human Rights Council.<\/p>\n In the report, Albanese investigates the corporate machinery that sustains the Israeli settler-colonial project of displacement and replacement of the Palestinians in the occupied territory. As political leaders and states evade their obligations, \u201cmany corporate entities have profited from the Israeli economy of illegal occupation, apartheid and now genocide,\u201d the summary reads.<\/p>\n The report lists\u00a0more than 60 corporate entities<\/a>, including weapons manufacturers, arms dealers, travel agents, real estate brokers, aerospace companies, tech firms, banks, asset management firms, pension funds, surveillance and incarceration technologies, charities, insurers, and universities. She mentions Lockheed Martin, Chevron, Microsoft, Alphabet, Google, Amazon, IBM, Hewlett Packard, Caterpillar, Airbnb, BlackRock, Palantir, Elbit, Allianz, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, AXA, Drummond, BNP, HD Hyundai, and Volvo.<\/p>\n Citing the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, Albanese writes: \u201cStates have the primary obligation to prevent, investigate, punish and remedy human rights abuses by third parties, and may breach their obligations if they fail to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n The corporate sector, which has provided Israel with weapons and machinery to destroy homes, schools, hospitals, places of worship, and productive assets, \u201chas contributed to the creation of the conditions for Palestinian ethnic cleansing.\u201d Corporations have sustained \u201cIsraeli expansion in occupied land while facilitating the replacement of Palestinians\u201d and \u201cturned the occupied Palestinian territory into a captive market.\u201d<\/p>\n Albanese analyzes how \u201cthe forever-occupation has become the ideal testing ground for arms manufacturers and big tech\u201d and \u201c[a]rms companies have turned over near record profits by equipping Israel with cutting-edge weaponry that has devastated a virtually defenceless civilian population.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThese sanctions on Albanese carry defiance of international law to another level, by inverting justice and punishing those who dare document what the U.S. government insists on covering up.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n She urges member states to impose sanctions and a full arms embargo on Israel; suspend or prevent trade agreements and investment relations; and impose sanctions, including asset freezes, on entities and individuals participating in activities that may endanger Palestinians.<\/p>\n Albanese urges corporate entities \u201cto promptly cease all business activities and terminate relationships directly linked with, contributing to and causing human rights violations and international crimes against the Palestinian people, in accordance with international corporate responsibilities and the law of self-determination\u201d and pay reparations to the Palestinian people.<\/p>\n In addition, she urges the ICC to investigate and prosecute corporate executives and\/or corporate entities for international crimes.<\/p>\n Finally, Albanese \u201curges trade unions, lawyers, civil society and ordinary citizens to press for boycotts, divestments, sanctions, justice for Palestine and accountability at the international and domestic levels; together, the people of the world can end these unspeakable crimes.\u201d<\/p>\n July 9 marked the 20th anniversary of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement, a nonviolent campaign launched by Palestinian civil society to hold Israel accountable under international law. \u201cWe decided that, at a minimum, in order for Palestinians to exercise our inalienable right as an indigenous people in our homeland to self-determination, three rights must be achieved,\u201d BDS co-founder Omar Barghouti\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0in an interview with\u00a0Mondoweiss.<\/em>\u00a0\u201cAn end to the military occupation, an end to the system of racial domination, segregation and apartheid, and the right of refugees to return and receive reparations.\u201d<\/p>\n Barghouti noted that before October 2023, not one country supported a military embargo of Israel. Now 53 states have official policies of military embargo. The Norwegian pension fund, the largest sovereign state fund in the world,\u00a0divested<\/a>\u00a0from Israeli bonds and several companies that contribute to apartheid. Large churches throughout the U.S. are divesting from Israel, and U.S. universities are divesting in response to student encampments and mobilizations. There are corporate, academic, sports, and cultural boycotts as well.<\/p>\n \u201cSanctioning Francesca Albanese confirms the U.S.\u2019s brazen contempt for international law and the UN, betraying the vision of why it was established under U.S. guidance in 1945, as a beacon of light after the carnage and genocide of World War II,\u201d Falk told\u00a0Truthout<\/em>. \u201cThese sanctions on Albanese carry defiance of international law to another level, by inverting justice and punishing those who dare document what the U.S. government insists on covering up. We should have learned by now that hiding genocide from legal and moral scrutiny compounds the tragedy and brings added shame to its governmental and corporate accomplices.\u201d<\/p>\n The Trump administration\u2019s sanctioning of Albanese \u201cis a blatant affront to the Palestinian people\u2019s demand for justice, truth, and accountability; an act of support for and incitement to genocide; and an intervention designed to dismantle one of the core independent oversight mechanisms of the multilateral international system,\u201d several organizations and individuals, including this writer, wrote in a public\u00a0statement<\/a>\u00a0initiated by the International Association of Democratic Lawyers. \u201cTo stand with Francesca Albanese is to stand with the Palestinian people in their quest for justice in the face of occupation, genocide, and war crimes \u2014 and to defend the universal values of international law.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\u201cAnatomy of a Genocide\u201d<\/h2>\n
\u201cGenocide as Colonial Erasure\u201d<\/h2>\n
\u201cFrom Economy of Occupation to Economy of Genocide\u201d<\/h2>\n
To Stand With Albanese Is to Stand With the Palestinian People<\/h2>\n
Human Rights and Global Wrongs<\/a><\/h5>\n<\/article>\n<\/section>\n\n\n
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