When speaking before the UN Human Rights Council, the representative singled out Israel for the serious bodily or mental harm committed in its offensive; deliberately inflicting living conditions calculated to bring about the physical destruction of the enclave’s population, and imposing measures designed to prevent births.
In accordance with international laws, these three conditions confirm their genocidal intentions, the expert emphasized.
The application of this crime in the crisis that broke out on October 7 in Gaza is the most extreme stage of a long-standing colonial process that began decades ago, the expert explained.
Her report titled Anatomy of a Genocide finds that for more than 76 years, the occupying power has oppressed Palestinians in every way imaginable, crushing their inalienable right to self-determination demographically, economically, territorially, culturally and politically.
The colonial amnesia of the West has tolerated the project of the Israeli settlers, the rapporteur warned, while now the world sees the bitter fruit of the impunity granted to Israel. It is, she said, a predicted tragedy.
According to the United Nations expert, Israel’s denial of reality, continued impunity and exceptionalism are no longer viable, particularly after the ceasefire resolution approved on Monday by the UN Security Council.
Albanese called on member states to fulfill their obligations, including imposing an arms embargo and sanctions on Israel to ensure that these crimes are not repeated in the future.
The Genocide Convention, approved in 1948, defines the commission of this crime when there is an intention to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.
The acts may include massacre, serious attacks on physical or mental integrity, or the intentional subjection of the group to conditions of existence that will lead to its total or partial physical destruction.
Likewise, it recognizes as genocide the adoption of measures aimed at preventing births within the group or the forced transfers of minors.
The term was coined and first defined by Polish-Jewish jurist Raphael Lemkin, who in 1939 fled the Holocaust and found asylum in the United States.
At the request of South Africa, the International Court of Justice maintains an open case against Israel for the commission of this crime in its offensive in the Gaza Strip.
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