Francesca Albanese calls for end to 'chronicling mentality,' urges comprehensive view of Israeli actions in occupied Palestinian territory
The UN special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory on Thursday stressed the need for accountability over the recent killings of Palestinians seeking aid in Gaza, while urging a comprehensive approach to investigate Israeli misconduct in the territory.
"There is a need, again, there is a need for accountability. No question about that," Francesca Albanese told a press briefing in Geneva, responding to a question from Anadolu on whether recent killings near aid zones run by the controversial Israeli-supported Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) warrant a new case before the International Court of Justice or the International Criminal Court.
Her press briefing came after the presentation of her new report, which focused on "economic genocide" happening in the occupied Palestinian territory. She described the GHF aid scheme as a "death trap – engineered to kill or force the flight of a starved population."
On the GHF, which has come under scrutiny for the hundreds of Palestinians killed while waiting for aid, Albanese noted she was "reassured" to learn that the entity "doesn't have a protected status in Switzerland, in Geneva anymore."
Swiss authorities on Wednesday announced that the group is being formally dissolved in Geneva. According to broadcaster RTS, the Swiss Federal Supervisory Authority for Foundations ordered the closure after determining the group no longer has a Swiss representative or address and has made no effort to correct the issue. The Home Affairs Department confirmed the decision.
In early June, the Swiss Foreign Ministry confirmed to Anadolu that the legal status of the controversial Geneva branch of the GHF is assessed to be "inactive" and "noncompliant" with legal requirements.
However, Albanese stressed that individual incidents – such as aid distribution killings – must not be viewed in isolation, but comprehensively. "I think that we need to get out of the chronicling approach and mentality. Of course, each incident requires analysis and investigation, but ... we need to look at the ensemble, get a step away from the detail," she said.
"Everything is happening in the context of a destructive, intentionally destructive assault that Israel has launched against the Palestinians in Gaza," she continued. "Which is also echoed and mirrored by the violence that has escalated and intensified against the Palestinians in the West Bank."
She added: "I do believe that it's necessary to see that this is not the first genocide that consists of several of other crimes, and it's in the relation and in the interplay of all these conducts and of all these crimes that one can also see how abandoned the Palestinians feel to this criminal design and to their destiny in their situation."
