A report issued March 25 for the UN Human Rights Council begins: “After five months of military operations, Israel has destroyed Gaza.” Titled Anatomy of a Genocide, the extensively researched 25-page report was written by Francesca Albanese, the Special Rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories that have been occupied since 1967. It has been reviewed by Professor Juan Cole of the University of Michigan in his blog Informed Comment. Cole provides this information:
The UN Security Council has finally passed a ceasefire resolution for Gaza, from which the US abstained, so it was passed by the other 14 members. Although UNSC resolutions are binding, and countries like Iraq and Iran have been severely punished for disobeying them, the US is running interference for the Netanyahu government by insisting that the resolution is “non-binding.”
He then quotes from the Albanese report::
The Israeli military has killed over 30,000 Palestinians, including over 13,000 children, and has wounded 71,000. Albanese says that not only has 80% of the population been made refugees but 70% of the areas where people lived have been destroyed. So they have no place to return to. Corpses have decayed “in homes, in the street or under the rubble.”
Cole quotes from the report that Israel’s policies in Gaza give “reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating Israel’s commission of genocide is met.”
The Special Rapporteur finds that Israeli authorities are misusing and distorting the international law governing the prosecution of war (jus in bello), disregarding their function in protecting innocent civilian noncombatants, “in an attempt to legitimize genocidal violence against the Palestinian people.” In other words, Israeli officials’ invocation of international humanitarian law is nothing more than a “camouflage.”
Cole says “the Special Rapporteur argues that genocidal projects are inherent in settler-colonial states.”
She cites the mass killings of the Native Americans in the US, the First Nations in Australia, and the Herrero in Namibia. Since the settler-colonial state covets the land and the resources of the native people, it has a motive for provoking the disintegration of the native people’s social institutions and very identity.
He also quotes:
“Israel’s settler movement and leaders have framed Gaza as a territory to be ‘re-colonized’ and its population as invaders to be expelled. These unlawful claims are integral to the project of consolidating the ‘exclusive and unassailable right of the Jewish people’ on the land of ‘Greater Israel’, as reaffirmed by Prime Minister Netanyahu in December 2022.”
Cole quotes from the report that the Israeli army so far has deployed
a) over 25,000 tons of explosives (equivalent to two nuclear bombs) on countless buildings
b) that the Israeli military dropped 2000-pound “bunker buster” bombs in “densely populated areas” and even on the “safe zones” declared by that very Israeli military.
c) The Israelis killed an average of 250 people a day in this period, including 100 children a day, destroying entire neighborhoods and necessary infrastructure.
Cole quotes from the report that by early December, the Israeli government was alleging that it had killed “7,000 terrorists” in Gaza. But at that point only 5,000 adult males had been killed, so it is clear that the Israeli authorities considered all of them terrorists.
In a compelling bit of reasoning, she points out that “This is indicative of an intent to indiscriminately target members of the protected group, assimilating them to active fighter status by default.”
Cole says the first element of genocide is “Killing members of the group.”
Albanese estimates that 10 children are dying of acute malnutrition daily that that over 500,000 Palestinians could die from malnutrition and poor health conditions in 2024.
He shows how other criteria for genocide are met:
“Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group.” This includes depriving them of needed medicines and inflicting psychological harm.
“Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.” Here she mentions the destruction of 77% of healthcare facilities, 68% of telcoms, almost 50% of roads, and 60% of Gaza’s 439,000 homes, all the universities, 60% of schools, etc.
He also quotes details of “Genocidal intent” from the report:
In the latest Gaza assault, direct evidence of genocidal intent is uniquely present. Vitriolic genocidal rhetoric has painted the whole population as the enemy to be eliminated and forcibly displaced. High-ranking Israeli officials with command authority have issued harrowing public statements evincing genocidal intent, including as follows:
(a) President Isaac Herzog stated that “an entire nation out there…is responsible” for the 7 October attack, and that Israel would “break their backbone”;
(b) Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu referred to Palestinians as “Amalek”and “monsters”.
(c) Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant referred to Palestinians as “human animals”, and announced “full offense” on Gaza, having “released all the restraints…”
Finally, Cole points out that “the Israeli military has subverted basic principles of international humanitarian law, which makes a key distinction between combatants and noncombatants.”
In essence, Israel’s government has treated all Palestinians in Gaza as combatants. Moreover, the Israeli military has declared all civilian institutions to be Hamas “power centers,” obliterating the distinction between hospitals and military garrisons.
Cole concludes:
Intransigence in the face of international law and international institutions could end up hurting Israel severely. Since the state is already under scrutiny for committing genocide by the International Court of Justice, its truculence and defiance of the UNSC can only harm its case.
www.juancole.com/...
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Francesca Albanese, an attorney educated in Pisa and London, has worked for a decade with the UN on human rights law. She is also at the Institute for the Study of International Migration at Georgetown University as an Affiliate Scholar. en.wikipedia.org/...