The top UN expert on Palestinian rights, Francesca Albanese, said Israel was trying to make Gaza City unlivable in its assault on the enclave’s largest urban area, and was endangering the lives of Israeli hostages.
“Israel is bombing using unconventional weapons… it is trying to forcibly evacuate Palestinians. Why? This is the last piece of Gaza that needs to be rendered unlivable before advancing the ethnic cleansing of that piece of land,” Albanese told reporters in Geneva.
She did not clarify what she meant by “unconventional weapons.”
The Permanent Mission of Israel to the UN rejected Albanese’s comments.
“Her numerous statements have showcased her willingness to go to extreme lengths in (the) delegitimization of the State of Israel,” the Mission said in a statement.
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“According to her, Hamas doesn’t embed itself in civilian infrastructure, doesn’t cynically use civilians as human shields, and generally doesn’t really exist,” it added.
Displaced Palestinians fleeing northern Gaza along the coastal road toward southern Gaza, September 13, 2025, after the Israeli army issued evacuation orders from Gaza City. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
Israel has said that its impending offensive to conquer Gaza City is crucial for it to meet its goal of destroying Hamas. It has encouraged the roughly one million people residing there to evacuate south. However, the UN and numerous countries say its tactics amount to forced mass displacement and that conditions in the humanitarian zone in southern Gaza are dire, with food in short supply.
Italian lawyer Albanese serves as a special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, one of dozens of experts appointed by the 47-member UN Human Rights Council to report on specific global issues.
She is an outspoken critic of Israel who has been accused of antisemitic and pro-terror rhetoric.
She regularly accuses Israel of genocide in Gaza and has said that the October 7, 2023, massacre, torture, rapes and abductions carried out by Hamas in southern Israel must be put in a “context of decades of oppression imposed on the Palestinians.”
“The ongoing assault to take the last remnant of Gaza will not only devastate the Palestinians, but endanger also the remaining Israeli hostages,” Albanese said in Geneva.
She again accused Israel of genocide and said the international community was complicit.
Flames erupt from a building following an Israeli military strike in Gaza City, September 14, 2025. (AP Photo/ Yousef Al Zanoun)
The nearly two-year campaign in the Palestinian enclave has killed more than 64,000 people, according to the Hamas-run health authorities, whose numbers cannot be verified.
Some rights groups like Amnesty International have also accused Israel of committing genocide, but not the United Nations itself.
UN officials have in the past said it is up to international courts to determine genocide.
Israel rejects the accusation of genocide, citing its right to self-defense following the October 7, 2023, attack by Hamas-led terrorists who killed 1,200 people and captured 251 hostages, of whom 47 are still captive in Gaza.
In July, the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that Albanese would be added to the US sanctions list for her actions, which he described as prompting illegitimate prosecutions of Israelis at the International Criminal Court.
Albanese said her attempts to travel to New York for the UN General Assembly in September to deliver a report do not look promising.
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