News - Middle East: The United Nations special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories has briefed members of the world body’s General Assembly on how more than sixty governments, most importantly Western powers and several Arab states, have been enabling the Israeli regime’s “genocidal machinery” in Gaza.

On Tuesday, Francesca Albanese delivered her presentation of her latest report, whose advance version had been released less than a week ago, to the General Assembly remotely, at the Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation, in Cape Town, South Africa.

According to her, the 24-page report, titled Gaza Genocide: A Collective Crime, showed how those states have been turning a blind eye as the coastal sliver’s two-million-plus war-hit and besieged population was being bombed, starved, and erased.

‘Metastasis: From apartheid to genocide’

The vast web of military, economic, and diplomatic complicity stretched from Washington and Berlin to London and beyond, she noted, speaking from South Africa, the symbolic ground for anti-apartheid struggle.

Albanese said global powers had “harmed, founded, and shielded Israel’s militarized apartheid,” allowing its settler-colonial project to metastasize into genocide, “the ultimate crime against the indigenous people of Palestine.”

Her 24-page report traced how weapons, technology, and intelligence from the colluding countries have helped sustain the assault that has left Gaza, in her words, “strangled, starved, shattered.”

Architecture of complicity

Albanese’s findings placed the United States at the core of the regime’s war economy, accounting for two-thirds of its arms imports and providing the diplomatic cover that has blocked accountability through seven UN Security Council vetoes.

The report also cited Germany, Britain, and other European powers for supplying advanced weaponry “even as evidence of genocide mounted.”

She denounced the European Union, which “was quick to sanction Russia over Ukraine,” for remaining the regime’s main trading partner, perpetuating the “weaponization of aid.”

She was referring to the regime’s imposing a near-total siege on Gaza during the war and the European states’ contribution to the atrocity, together meant to maximize suffering and casualties.

The Arab enablers

The report went further, calling out Arab states that had normalized ties with Tel Aviv while Gaza burned.

Egypt, she noted, maintained “significant security and economic relations with Israel, including energy cooperation and the closing of the Rafah crossing,” Gaza’s lifeline, tightening the noose on Gaza’s last humanitarian lifeline.

Beyond weapons and trade, Albanese condemned decades of “moral and political failure” by the multilateral system, a world order that has allowed genocide to unfold in real time, broadcast live yet met with bureaucratic paralysis.

Her report warned that the international community now stands “on a knife-edge between the collapse of the rule of law and hope for renewal.”

“Renewal,” she said, “is only possible if complicity is confronted, responsibilities are met and justice is upheld.”

Israeli envoy reacts with outburst

The presentation triggered a storm inside the UN chamber when Israeli envoy, Danny Danon, launched a personal tirade, calling the Italian jurist a “wicked witch.”

Human rights experts condemned the attack as “outrageous,” saying it exposed the desperation of those seeking to silence independent UN voices.

Unfazed, Albanese responded, “If the worst thing you can accuse me of is witchcraft, I’ll take it. But if I had the power to make spells, I would use it to stop your crimes once and for all and to ensure those responsible end up behind bars.”

Albanese concluded by urging nations to suspend all military and trade agreements with Tel Aviv, including dual-use goods deployable for war, and to build “a living framework of rights and dignity, not for the few, but for the many.”

Human rights experts have described her report as the most damning UN indictment yet of the war, which has so far claimed the lives of around 68,560 Palestinians, mostly women and children since its onset in October 2023.

Source: Press TV