Albanese again.

 A recent CNN report told how the IDF rescued four hostages in a special operation in the Nuseirat refugee camp, central Gaza. Further to that, CNN relying on figures supplied by the Hamas-run health ministry and the government media office in Gaza said the IDF killed 210 people and injured more than 400 others in the rescue operation.

Noa Argamani, Almog Meir Jan, Andrey Kozlov, and Shlomi Ziv, were rescued by the Israeli military, intelligence and special forces from two separate locations in Nuseirat, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said Saturday.

All four were kidnapped from the Nova music festival on October 7.

The rescue operation originally designated “Operation Summer Seeds” has been renamed "Operation Arnon," honouring Chief Inspector Arnon Zamora, the police commando who led the rescue team before he was killed.

CNN thought it pertinent to add that it has no way of verifying casualty numbers reported by the government media office in Gaza. The media office does not differentiate between civilians and militants killed.

UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories Francesca Albanese wrote on social media on Saturday that while she was relieved that the Israeli hostages had been "released," the rescue "should not have come at the expense of at least 200 Palestinians, including children, killed and over 400 injured by Israel and allegedly foreign soldiers, while perfidiously hiding in an aid truck."

Albanese appeared to reference rumours spread by Palestinian and anti-Israel sources that US special forces had aided in the operation. 

"Israel has used hostages to legitimise killing, injuring, maiming, starving and traumatising Palestinians in Gaza," asserted Albanese. "And while intensifying violence against Palestinians in the rest of the occupied territory and Israel."

You will probably recall a comment I made in my blog last November- “Currently in Australia, heading for New Zealand UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories Francesca Albanese is bent on gaining support for her insidious mission to demonise Israel.”

Albanese was the second Italian (after Giorgio Giacomelli  and the first woman to be appointed as the UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories. Her appointment generated some controversy due to comments she made criticising the US and Europe during the 2014 Gaza War. Albanese described the United States as "subjugated by the Jewish lobby " and Europe by a "sense of guilt about the Holocaust ", arguing that both "condemn the oppressed" in the conflict . The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Susan Heller Pinto of the Anti-Defamation League, and Michele Taylor, the American ambassador to the Human Rights Council,  suggested the comments were antisemitic in nature. Albanese said that she has never been antisemitic and that her criticism of Israel is related to its occupation of Palestinian territories. 

On 18 October 2022, Albanese recommended in her first report that UN member states develop "a plan to end the Israeli settler-colonial occupation and apartheid regime."  The report concluded: "The violations described in the present report expose the nature of the Israeli occupation, that of an intentionally acquisitive, segregationist and repressive regime designed to prevent the realisation of the Palestinian people's right to self-determination."

In December 2022, sixty-five scholars of antisemitism, the Holocaust, and Jewish studies stated: "It is evident that the campaign against [Albanese] is not about combating today's antisemitism. It is essentially about efforts to silence her and to undermine her mandate as a senior UN official reporting about Israel's violations of human rights and international law."

In January 2023, a statement was issued in defence of Albanese by a number of human rights organisations, academic institutions, and other civil society organisations. The statement concluded by stating: "We commend Francesca Albanese’s tireless efforts toward the protection of human rights and in raising awareness of the alarming daily violations of Palestinian rights. We call on third world States to strongly condemn this politically-motivated attack on the Special Rapporteur's mandate and to compel Israel to comply with its obligations under the Charter of the United Nations." 

In February 2023, a bipartisan group of 18 members of the United States Congress called for Albanese to be removed from her position saying that she has demonstrated a consistent bias against Israel.

Amid continuing efforts to have Albanese removed from her post, on 26 April, Amnesty International Italy published a letter of support signed by dozens of Italian rights groups, MPs, jurists and academics. On 27 April, three former holders of the position publicly urged the UN to defend Albanese and said that she has been "the target of attacks that have been 'slanderous' and 'personal'". On 3 May, Albanese tweeted that she "saw too many Palestinian deaths, too much arbitrariness, zero accountability" and faced accusations for her work in addressing these abuses.

In July 2023, during the 30th Meeting of the 53rd Regular Session of the UN Human Rights Council, Albanese presented a report accusing Israel of turning the West Bank into an open-air prison. Briefing journalists, Albanese said "There is no other way to define the regime that Israel has imposed on the Palestinians – which is apartheid by default – other than an open-air prison." Israel was not present for the presentation but rejected the findings.

During the Israel-Hamas War, Albanese called for an immediate ceasefire, warning that "Palestinians are in grave danger of a mass ethnic cleansing." She further stated that the international community must "prevent and protect populations from atrocity crimes", and that "accountability for international crimes committed by Israeli occupation forces and Hamas must also be immediately pursued."

In February 2024, French President Emmanuel Macron described the 7 October attack as "the largest antisemitic massacre of our century". Albanese responded on Twitter that "the victims of the October 7 massacre were killed not because of their Judaism, but in response to Israeli oppression". The French Foreign Ministry condemned her remarks and the Israeli government declared Albanese persona non grata in Israel and denied her future entry to the country. In response to the reactions, Albanese said "I regret that some interpreted my tweet as 'justifying' Hamas's crimes, which I have condemned strongly several times. I reject all forms of racism, including antisemitism. However, labelling these crimes as 'antisemitic' obscures the real reason they occurred''.

On March 26, 2024 Albanese, presented before the 55th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council  in Geneva her report "Anatomy of a Genocide", stating "reasonable grounds" to believe that Israel is intentionally committing "genocidal acts against the Palestinians as a group in Gaza proscribed in the Genocide Convention.

International news outlets have invariably tried to toe the line regarding fairness in their reporting. They avoid anything that could possibly be construed as criticising designated terrorist organisations by adding the innocuous postscript “according to.”

Our weather is also cause for concern. We are experiencing an unprecedented heatwave. So, I’ll take Noël Coward’s advice and avoid “going out in the midday sun.” 

 

Beni,

13th of June, 2024