UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese accuses Israel of lying about all aspects of Gaza
"Israel has been operating on the premise that if you tell a lie long enough. [If] you repeat it over and over, people will believe it," Francesca Albanese to European Parliament
At a public hearing at the European Parliament on April 9, Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine, accused Israel of destroying Gaza and committing genocide in the enclave.
Albanese was one of a series of invited speakers at the hearing held by members of the European Parliament. She was asked to give her view on the war in Gaza.
She accuses Israel of committing genocide in Gaza and enacting apartheid on the Palestinians.
She called "Israel's genocide in Gaza" extremely conspicuous and ostentatious and slammed the world for failing other people after Rwanda, Srebrenica, and Myanmar.
She listed three acts that, in her view, constitute genocide: killing members of the group, causing serious bodily or mental harm to the group, and deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.
She then cited the destruction of Gaza as a whole and the deaths of mothers as proof of this attempt at destroying the Palestinian people. "The whole society has been targeted," she said.
"The ground offensive has changed the pattern but not the scale of destruction."
Accusations of genocide
She argued that Israel had destroyed so much of Gaza that it had attempted to destroy the Palestinian way of life.
She also cited Israeli soldier's social media posts as evidence of genocide.
Albanese then accused Israel's political and military leadership, as well as common soldiers, of distorting international law.
For example, claiming that the IDF intentionally distorted the distinction between the soldiers and civilians in an attempt to legitimize genocide and justify violence against Palestinians.
She further accused Israel of distorting the meaning of several humanitarian concepts, such as human shields or medical support, in order to allow Israel to use "humanitarian camouflage" to commit genocide.
Albanese went on to deny that terrorist groups had used hospitals as staging grounds for attacks and claimed Israel was simply lying as much as possible to avoid scrutiny.
"Israel has been operating on the premise that if you tell a lie long enough. [If] you repeat it over and over, people will believe it."
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