A UN expert who concluded that Israel was carrying out genocide in Gaza stated on Wednesday that she had received threats because of her work, but that this had just strengthened her resolve to move forward.
According to Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the state of human rights in the Palestinian territories, Israel is “committing the crime of genocide against the Palestinians as a group in Gaza” and there are good reasons to think this is the case.
Israel, which has long been a harsh critic of Albanese, referred to her report as a “obscene inversion of reality” and demanded that she resign, and pro-Israel organizations agreed.
Asked about the blowback at a news conference in Geneva, she acknowledged that “it has been a difficult time”.The independent expert, who was appointed by the UN Human Rights Council in
2022 but who does not speak on behalf of the United Nations, said she had “been attacked since the very beginning of my mandate”.
“I do receive threats,” she acknowledged, adding though that she had received “nothing that so far I have considered needing extra precautions.”
The pressure, she said, “pisses me off, of course it does. But it … creates even more pressure not to step back.”
