GENEVA: The top UN expert on Palestinian rights, Francesca Albanese, said Israel was trying to make Gaza City unliveable in its assault on the enclave’s largest urban area and was endangering the lives of Israeli hostages.
“Israel is bombing using unconventional weapons … it is trying to forcibly evacuate Palestinians. Why? This is the last piece of Gaza that needs to be rendered unliveable before advancing the ethnic cleansing of that piece of land,” Albanese told reporters in Geneva.
The Israeli mission in Geneva was not immediately available for comment.
Israel says the offensive to take control of Gaza City is part of a plan to defeat Palestinian militant group Hamas for good and that it has warned civilians to head south to a designated humanitarian zone.
However, the UN and numerous countries say its tactics amount to forced mass displacement and that conditions in the humanitarian zone are dire, with food in short supply.
Italian lawyer Albanese serves as a special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, one of dozens of experts appointed by the 47-member UN Human Rights Council to report on specific global issues.
“The ongoing assault to take the last remnant of Gaza will not only devastate the Palestinians but endanger also the remaining Israeli hostages,” Albanese said.
She accused Israel of genocide and said the international community was complicit.
