An independent UN investigator and outspoken critic of Israel’s military operation in Gaza said on Thursday that “it was shocking” that the Trump administration had imposed sanctions on her but stood by her view on the war.
Francesca Albanese said in an interview with the AP that the powerful were trying to silence her for speaking out for those with little to no power, “other than standing and hoping not to die, not to see their children slaughtered.”
“This is not a sign of power, it’s a sign of guilt,” the UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories said.
The State Department’s decision to impose sanctions on Albanese followed an unsuccessful US pressure campaign to force the Geneva-based Human Rights Council, the UN’s top human rights body, to remove her from her post.
She is tasked with probing human rights abuses in the Palestinian territories and has been vocal about what she has described as the “genocide” by the Israeli military in Gaza.
Both Israel and the US have strongly denied that accusation.
“Albanese’s campaign of political and economic warfare against the United States and Israel will no longer be tolerated,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a post on social media.
“We will always stand by our partners in their right to self-defence.”
The US announced the sanctions on Albanese on Wednesday as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was visiting Washington for talks with President Donald Trump and other officials about reaching a ceasefire in Gaza.
Netanyahu faces an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court, which accuses him of crimes against humanity in his military offensive in Gaza.
In the interview, Albanese accused American officials of receiving Netanyahu with honour and standing side-by-side with someone wanted by the ICC, a court that neither the US nor Israel is a member of or recognises.
Trump slapped sanctions on the court in February, in response to arrest warrants issued late last year for Netanyahu and his then Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant.
“We need to reverse the tide and in order for it to happen — we need to stand united,” Albanese said. “They cannot silence us all.”
Albanese stressed that the only way to win is to get rid of fear and to stand up for the Palestinians and their right to an independent state.
The Trump administration’s stance “is not normal,” she said, defiantly repeating, “No one is free until Palestine is free.”
The United Nations, Human Rights Watch and the Centre for Constitutional Rights opposed the US sanctions on Albanese.
“The imposition of sanctions on special rapporteurs is a dangerous precedent” and “is unacceptable,” UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
While Albanese reports to the Human Rights Council and not to Secretary General Antonio Guterres, the US and any other UN member are entitled to disagree with reports by independent rapporteurs, “but we encourage them to engage with the UN human rights architecture.”
Trump announced the US was withdrawing from the council in February.
The war in Gaza began when Hamas militants attacked southern Israel on 7 October 2023, killing around 1,200 people, most of them civilians.
Hamas took 251 people as hostages, and is currently still holding 50, around 20 of whom are believed to be alive. A subsequent Israeli offensive has to date killed 57,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry whose figures do not distinguish between fighters and civilians.
The Israeli military says 850 of its soldiers have died since the start of the war.
Additional sources • AP
