Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories. File photo.
Outspoken UN rapporteur Francesca Albanese has reasserted her and her like-minded people’s determination to stop the ongoing genocide being committed in Gaza by the Israeli regime, which she denounced as a “dictatorship” for Palestinians.
The world body’s special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories made the remarks on the latest edition of Press TV’s Face to Face program that was broadcast on Saturday.
“We will stop this genocide, the matter is when,” she vowed.
“People and institutions are coming out, and they want to stand in solidarity, not with me, with the Palestinian people,” the UN official added.
Albanese said Palestinians’ right to self-determination and their “political future is not up for negotiation,” despite feverish efforts by the regime and its allies, mostly notably the United States, to nullify such entitlements by equating them with “terrorism.”
She called the regime a “democracy” for its own illegal settlers, but “a military dictatorship for five million people, Palestinians.”
Towards enforcing the dictatorship, Albanese noted, the regime was deploying “21st-century modern technology and weaponry and spying services and artificial intelligence” in ways that “can be replicated.”
Tel Aviv, though, “must be sanctioned” like any other party, which commits crimes, she stressed.
In March 2024, Albanese found the regime to be culpable for committing at least three acts of genocide, naming those as acts of killing, acts calculated to destroy the people in Gaza, and acts aimed at inflicting severe bodily and mental harm on them.
At the time, she said these efforts were geared towards “colonial erasure” of Palestinians by a chronically apartheid regime.
Earlier this year, Albanese unveiled a report implicating many companies in enabling the regime’s empowerment by contributing to Tel Aviv’s “economy of occupation” and now “economy of genocide.”
The report was ensued by American sanctions as well as relentless defamation campaigns, accusing her falsely of “anti-Semitism and inciting violence.”
UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese Urges World to Cut Ties With Israel
Under fire, but still standing
Albanese said the coercive measures amounted to an “extremely serious” affront to the multilateral system, and were aimed “to silence me, to deter me from continuing this mandate.”
The official, however, vowed to persist, saying the “unbearable” reality of genocide demands urgent action to stop the Palestinian suffering. The US is “trying to isolate me,” but public and institutional solidarity is growing.
She, meanwhile, urged the UN to respond, warning, “If this is not addressed, it will happen to others.”
Palestine ‘a tool of awakening’
“I think Palestine has been a tool of awakening,” Albanese stressed.
She said she had “this clear sense of the revolutionary phase we are living [in] because of the acceleration of developments.”
“Two years ago, it was impossible to talk about Palestine.”
(PressTV)
