Report Of The Special Rapporteur On The Situation Of Human Rights In The Palestinian Territories Occupied Since 1967

Genocide as colonial erasure

In the present report, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, Francesca Albanese, examines the unfolding horrors in the occupied Palestinian territory. While the wholesale destruction of Gaza continues unabated, other parts of the land have not been spared.

The violence that Israel has unleashed against the Palestinians post-7 October is not happening in a vacuum, but is part of a long-term intentional, systematic, State-organized forced displacement and replacement of the Palestinians. This trajectory risks causing irreparable prejudice to the very existence of the Palestinian people in Palestine. Member States must intervene now to prevent new atrocities that will further scar human history.

Introduction

1. In March 2024, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, Francesca Albanese, concluded that there were reasonable grounds to believe that Israel had committed acts of genocide in Gaza.[1] In the present report, the Special Rapporteur expands the analysis of the post - 7 October 2023 violence against Gaza, which has spread to the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. She focuses on genocidal intent, contextualising the situation within a decades-long process of territorial expansion and ethnic cleansing aimed at liquidating the Palestinian presence in Palestine. She suggests that genocide should be seen as integral and instrumental to the aim of full Israeli colonization of Palestinian land while removing as many Palestinians as possible.
2. The present report is based on legal research and analysis, interviews with victims and witnesses, including in Jordan and Egypt, open-source information and input from experts and civil-society organizations. The Special Rapporteur, still refused access to the occupied Palestinian territory, stresses that Israel has no authority to bar fact-finding mechanisms from the territory that it illegally occupies. The persistent denial of access to United Nations mechanisms and investigators of the International Criminal Court (ICC) may constitute obstruction of justice, in defiance of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) order that Israel allow international investigators to enter Gaza and take measures to ensure the preservation of evidence. [2]
3. While the scale and nature of the ongoing Israeli assault against the Palestinians vary by area, the totality of the Israeli acts of destruction directed against the totality of the Palestinian people, with the aim of conquering the totality of the land of Palestine, is clearly identifiable. Patterns of violence against the group as a whole warrant the application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Genocide Convention) in order to cease, prevent and punish genocide in the whole of the occupied Palestinian territory

[1] A/HRC/55/73, para. 7.

[2] Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip (South Africa v. Israel), Order, 26 January 2024, I.C.J. Reports 2024, para. 86 (5); and Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip (South Africa v. Israel), Request for the Modification of the Order of 28 March 2024, Order, 24 May 2024, I.C.J. Reports 2024, para. 57 (2) (c).

The Report can be read in full in English here: https://documents.un.org/doc/undoc/gen/n24/279/68/pdf/n2427968.pdf

It is available in all UN official languages: http://undocs.org/A/79/384

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