On April 10, a Zoom briefing titled Gaza Crisis Response Briefing with Francesca Albanese was organised by Amnesty International Australia, and open to the general public. Sam Klintworth, the National Director for Amnesty International Australia and Mohamed Duar, Amnesty International Australia’s Occupied Palestinian Territories and Israel spokesperson, first emphasised the ultimate cost of war as being the erosion of human rights. They called upon Australia to not allow the transfer or manufacture of arms to Israel, especially as the use of US-made weapons in Gaza has been verified by Amnesty International.
Francesca Albanese explained that as a Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), she is appointed by the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council, and is not paid by the UN, rather it is a “commitment to justice and labour of love”. As an independent expert, Albanese’s role is to monitor, observe and document human rights violations, writing one report for the UN Human Rights Council and another for the UN General Assembly. She emphasised that she does not cover historic Palestine or the fate of all Palestinians, only the OPT or what is known as the 1967 territories.
Despite having the responsibility to visit, Israel has obstructed Albanese’s mobility within the OPT due to a hostility to the UN mandate. Thanks to technology, Albanese has been able to speak to victims, in addition to visiting other countries and advocating through the media and social media platforms to affect the discourse of international law.
Albanese also spoke about her “Anatomy of a Genocide Report” presented to the Human Rights Council, a result of a five-month-long investigation, including interviewing “victims, survivors, visited children without limbs” who have been able to leave Gaza as well as consult former Israeli soldiers who could verify information about the conduct of the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF).
She reiterated that the parameters of genocide are “defined by Genocide Convention…drafted after the Holocaust or Shoah”. She spoke to the material act and mental or intention to destroy. As such, her report concluded that the “threshold has been met… not just statements as that is not genocide per se, but supported by conduct and practice on the ground.” Because soldiers have been filming and reenacting dehumanising rhetoric of their leaders, Albanese indicated that it is clear how Israel has justified their military operations, labelling it as a “genocidal logic, sold to the world as if it is acceptable”.
She spoke to the statistics where “70% of women and children” are being killed, which is approximately 80 children a day, and that there is evidence to show how Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been used to decide targets. “Israel has used a weapon arsenal that is absolutely unprecedented… on a small piece of land, that is the most densely populated on earth”, said Albanese.
Responding to one of the main criticisms of the report, “you have not been there”, Albanese asked critics to “press for parliamentarians, journalists and other humanitarian operators to visit Gaza… a territory Israel illegally occupies.” She also asked for “a serious investigation to determine individual liability” both those who ordered and those who executed, given that there is “no statutory limitation for genocide”.
When an attendee asked if Hamas is bound by international humanitarian law, Albanese responded that all parties are. She reiterated that “what Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups have done…. there should be an investigation” as targeting civilians qualifies as a war crime and they are not given a “discount”. On a legal and technical level, Albanese said that the Palestinian Authority (PA) on behalf of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) acceded to the Rome Statute and have initiated proceedings before the International Criminal Court (ICC), so “the prosecutor [of the ICC] can investigate any crimes committed there”. In contrast, Israel is not a party to the Rome Statute but Albanese said that they can still request that the prosecutor investigate the attacks on October 7.
Moving onto the role of the media, Albanese admitted that this “warrants an investigation and observation of its own”, given that the media has chosen not to use the right language and “created a cocoon for Israel” to escape accountability. An unprecedented “sanitisation of language regarding Israel” has resulted, which in turn has “amplified Israel’s narrative, in Australia and elsewhere.” As such, the silencing of voices is deliberate in order to limit space for alternative voices and besmirch them in “smear campaigns to reduce their credibility, like journalist Antoniette Lattouf.” “It creates a haze of confusion about who is entitled to speak and who are the authoritative voices,” concluded Albanese.
Albanese also explained that “conflation of criticism of Israel and Judaism banalises antisemitism”. She then spoke to the conflation of Hamas and terrorism, with “the people of Gaza [being a] part of that.” On April 11, a day after the briefing, it was revealed that the children and grandchildren of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh — who resides in Qatar — were targeted and killed by Israel in Gaza. In a tweet, Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine Director of Human Rights Watch emphasised that while Haniyeh is a political leader of a combatant group, his family in Gaza are still considered civilians.
“Let’s be clear: relatives of combatants that are not involved in the fighting are civilians. Even political leaders — if uninvolved in military ops — are not legitimate targets under laws of war. Deliberate attacks on civilians are heinous war crimes that have no justification. Ever.”
Albanese compared the reasoning behind UNRWA’s defunding — Israel alleged that some workers were involved in October 7 — to “defunding a hospital because a nurse committed a crime.” “Israel has steadily tried to delegitimise and weaken the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine (UNRWA), the symbol of Palestinian right to return and refugees”, said Albanese. She elaborated that the UNRWA is a subsidiary organ of the General Assembly and only they can decide on the termination or cessation of the mandate. Furthermore, she reminded attendees that the people in Gaza are not from Gaza but are from what is now Israel, and in undermining UNRWA, Israel is trying to erase the Palestine refugee problem, however, it “travels with every Palestinian” worldwide.
Albanese concluded that at this point in time the following is needed:
- Respect for international law for all parties involved
- Cessation of hostilities and accountability
- Arms embargo and sanctions towards Israel
- Adherence to the UN Security Council’s ceasefire resolution — an immediate ceasefire specified for the duration of Ramadan, which has since concluded — as it is legally binding
- Investigations at both the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which is still ongoing.
Amnesty International’s spokespeople concluded by asking attendees to join protests and show solidarity, call their local members for parliament (MPs), and make donations where possible.