UN report claims Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, call for arms embargo

• Published date: 25 March 2024
• Author: LEON KRAIEM
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

"I find that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating the commission of the crime of genocide against Palestinians as a group in Gaza has been met," she told the UN rights body in Geneva

Israel, which did not attend the session, rejected her findings.

"Instead of seeking the truth, this Special Rapporteur tries to fit weak arguments to her distorted and obscene inversion of reality," Israel's diplomatic mission in Geneva said, adding that its war was against Hamas and not Palestinian civilians.

An earlier draft of the report, available online, presents the supposed genocide as "driven by a genocidal logic integral to [Israel's] settler-colonial project in Palestine," comparing Israel's relationship with the Palestinians to the US's relationship with Native Americans and drawing on a highly controversial interpretation of Israeli history.

In the report, the UN special rapporteur says that genocide has always been "an inevitable part of the forming of Israel," claiming that "practices leading to the mass ethnic cleansing of Palestine's non-Jewish population occurred in 1947–1949," as well as in 1967. The report does not mention either of the wars fought during those respective periods.

The report addresses Israel's evacuation notices and the creation of safe zones and humanitarian corridors in Gaza, alleging that "the sheer scale of evacuations amidst an intense bombing campaign and the haphazardly communicated safe zones system, along with extended communications blackouts, increased levels of panic, forced displacement, and mass killings."

Albanese goes on to suggest that these measures were disguised instruments to corral Palestinian civilians, who were then targeted. "Simply put," the report says, "'safe areas' were deliberately turned into areas of mass killing." It is reasonable to infer, Albanese concludes, "that evacuation orders and safe zones have been used as genocidal tools to achieve ethnic cleansing."

Gulf nations voiced support for the findings

Gulf nations such as Qatar and African countries, including Algeria and Mauritania, voiced support for Albanese's findings and alarm at the humanitarian situation.

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