Israel's Value Performs Genocide In Gaza, UN Experts Urge International To Embargo Weapons And Impose Sanctions

Israeli military land operations in Gaza. (Source: Israel Defense Forces)

JAKARTA - UN experts told the Human Rights Council on Tuesday he believed the Israeli military campaign in the Gaza Strip since last October was genocide, asking countries to immediately impose sanctions and arms embargoes.

"It is my serious duty to report the worst that mankind can do and present my findings," saidwa Albanese, UN Special Reporter for Human Rights in the Occupation Area when delivering his report entitled "Anatomici Genocide" at the agency meeting in Geneva, Switzerland., reported Reuters March 27.

"I find there is a plausible reason to believe that the threshold showing the crime of genocide against Palestinians as a group in Gaza has been met," he said, citing more than 30,000 Palestinians killed among other actions.

"I ask member states to comply with their obligations, which began with implementing an arms embargo and sanctions against Israel and ensuring that the future does not happen again," he exclaimed, greeted with lively applause.

The 1948 Genocide Convention, which was passed after the mass killings of Jews in the Nazi Holocaust, defines genocide as "an act committed with the intention of destroying, overall or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group".

Israel, who did not attend the meeting, rejected the findings.

Israel's diplomatic mission in Geneva said the use of the word genocide was an "outrageous" act, saying the war was carried out against the militant group Hamas and not against Palestinian civilians.

This was triggered when Hamas fighters stormed southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and holding 253 people hostage, based on Israeli calculations.

"Instead of looking for the truth, this Special Reporter tries to incorporate weak arguments into the reversal of deviant and indecent realities," he said.

Meanwhile, Gulf countries such as Qatar, as well as African countries including Algeria and Mauritania, voiced support for Albanese's findings and concerns about the humanitarian situation.

Meanwhile, the seat of an ally of Israel, the United States, was left vacant. Washington previously accused the council of having chronic anti-Israel bias.

Albanese, an Italian lawyer, is one of dozens of independent human rights experts mandated by the United Nations to report and advise on certain themes and crises. His views do not reflect the views of the global body as a whole.

In the past, his comments on the Israeli-Hamas conflict have attracted attention, including from the US Ambassador in Geneva who said he had a history of using "antisemites".