UN Expert Albanese Accuses Israel of Making Gaza City “Unlivable”

GENEVA, Sept 15 (VoM): Israel is deliberately making Gaza City uninhabitable as part of its ongoing assault on the enclave’s largest urban area, while also endangering the lives of Israeli hostages, UN Special Rapporteur on Palestinian human rights Francesca Albanese said on Monday.

Speaking to reporters in Geneva, Albanese accused Israel of using “unconventional weapons” to forcibly evacuate Palestinians. “Why? This is the last piece of Gaza that needs to be rendered unlivable before advancing the ethnic cleansing of that piece of land,” she said.

The Israeli mission in Geneva was not immediately available for comment. Israel has maintained that its offensive in Gaza City is aimed at defeating Hamas once and for all, stressing that it has urged civilians to relocate south to designated humanitarian zones.

However, the United Nations and numerous governments have condemned these tactics as forced mass displacement, with dire conditions in the so-called safe zones where food and basic supplies remain scarce.

Albanese, an Italian lawyer appointed by the UN Human Rights Council in 2022, warned that Israel’s assault risks not only “devastating Palestinians” but also “endangering the remaining Israeli hostages.” She accused Israel of genocide and charged that the international community’s inaction made it complicit.

The nearly two-year campaign in Gaza has killed more than 64,000 people, according to local health authorities. While human rights groups such as Amnesty International have also accused Israel of genocide, the UN has said that only international courts can make such determinations. Israel rejects the charge, citing its right to self-defense following Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack, which killed 1,200 people and resulted in 251 hostages being taken.

Albanese herself has come under fire, with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announcing in July that she would be placed on the U.S. sanctions list, accusing her of advancing “illegitimate prosecutions” of Israelis at the International Criminal Court.

She said her planned trip to New York for the upcoming UN General Assembly to deliver her latest report now “does not look promising” due to restrictions tied to the sanctions.