The UN's special rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) said Tuesday that Israel is committing genocide in the Gaza Strip.
Francesca Albanese described the attacks as "the culmination of decades of moral and political failure" and condemned the complicity of countries that continue to arm and support Israel.
"On day 751 of the genocide in Gaza, I begin by honoring the victims and survivors of all genocides, past and present," Albanese said in a virtual address to the UN General Assembly's Third Committee.
She said her report on the OPT reveals that "these horrors are not an aberration, but the culmination of decades of moral and political failure within a resilient colonial world order-sustained by a global system of complicity."
Noting that many countries enabled Israel's assault on Gaza, she said: "Through unlawful actions and deliberate omissions, too many states have armed, funded, and shielded Israel's militarized apartheid in the occupied Palestinian territory, allowing its settler-colonial enterprise to metastasize into genocide, the ultimate crime against the Indigenous people of Palestine."
She said "over 240,000 (people have been) killed or injured, (with) thousands missing, buried under rubble or disappeared into Israeli dungeons," adding that Gaza "remains strangled, starved, and shattered."
Albanese also criticized the US for sanctioning her for her work.
"I deeply regret not being able to present this report in person, due to certain unlawful and spiteful sanctions imposed on me by the United States for fulfilling my UN mandate."
"These measures are an assault on the UN itself, on its independence, its integrity, its very soul," she added.
Calling on states to take concrete action, she said: "States must secure a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, full Israeli withdrawal from every inch of the occupied Palestinian territory and dismantlement of the colonies."
She warned that if the UN Security Council remains deadlocked, "this assembly shall act under 'Uniting for Peace' in ways more robust than it has until now."
"From the ruins of Gaza and from the hope of South Africa, through the resilience of the Palestinian people -- may a new multilateralism rise: not a facade, but a living architecture of rights and dignity of the many, not for the privileges of the few," she said.
Albanese also responded to an inflammatory attack against her by Israel's UN envoy Danny Danon in his speech, as he accused her of witchcraft.
"It is grotesque and frankly delusional that a genocidal state can't respond to the substance of my findings, and the best thing that he resorts to is accusing me of witchcraft. So be it. You're the one accused of genocide; if the worst thing you can accuse me of is witchcraft, I take it," she said. "If I had the power to make spells, I would use it not for vengeance. I would use it to stop your crimes once and for all, and to make sure that those responsible end up behind bars."
The committee's chair reprimanded Danon for his inflammatory attack.
Albanese later held a virtual news conference about her report and stressed the importance of supporting South Africa's decision to launch a case for genocide against Israel before the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
"This is not just about Palestine. It is about the survival of the United Nations, according to its core values and norms," she said, noting the need to "forge a new multilateralism that is not for the few, but for the many, premised upon human dignity and equal rights and justice."
Asked about the personal attacks against her, she said she "almost" no longer feels them.
"What I hear more loudly is the cry for an end of the brutality and the genocide from Gaza, end of an ethnic cleansing from the West Bank, the cry of the people who are tired and disgusted by the ongoing genocide, including in my own country," she said.
Regarding the US denying her entry, Albanese said: "There is not much to say, other than it was cumbersome."
"I'm not there to fight with the United States over my appearance in New York. I was happy to be in South Africa among people who deserve my presence," she added.
Responding to a question about the International Criminal Court's (ICC) "failure" to issue more arrest warrants, Albanese described the court as "strangled."
"I would like to know if, in five years' time, or 10 years' time, if things progress this way, the ICC will still be there," she said, adding that "we are not talking about a dystopic future. We are in a dystopic moment where member states, influential member states, clearly do not play by the rules and say openly that they don't need the international system anymore."
Emphasizing that "Palestine is a test," she criticized the UN for failing in Gaza and said "the UN was set up to protect peace and stability, to prevent conflicts for a long time. It does manage to avoid at least a nuclear war, but in Gaza, it has failed miserably."
"It has failed to enforce international law, which, for me as a lawyer, is the most serious responsibility," she said, accusing the UN of becoming "more and more irrelevant."
