After school strike, UN rapporteur accuses Israel of ‘genocide’

An independent, UN-appointed rights expert accused Israel of committing “genocide” in its Gaza war after an Israeli strike targeting a school on Saturday killed 93 people, according to local rescuers.

“Israel is genociding the Palestinians one neighbourhood at the time, one hospital at the time, one school at the time, one refugee camp at the time, one safe zone at the time,” Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on the rights situation in the Palestinian territories, said on social media platform X.

Israel was carrying out such strikes against Palestinians using “US and European weapons”, Albanese said.

“May the Palestinians forgive us for our collective inability to protect them,” she added.

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In a report issued in March, Albanese said there were “reasonable grounds” to determine that Israel had committed several acts of “genocide” in its war in Gaza.

Israel, which has long been highly critical of Albanese and her mandate, denounced her report as an “obscene inversion of reality”.

She has said that “of course” she also condemned Hamas for its attack on Israel which triggered 10 months of war in the Gaza Strip.

Special rapporteurs are appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council but do not speak on behalf of the UN.