<\/p>\n
Arabic\/\u0627\u0644\u0639\u0631\u0628\u064a\u0629<\/a><\/p>\n GENEVA (14 October 2023) \u2013 A UN human rights expert warned today that Palestinians are in grave danger of mass ethnic cleansing and called on the international community to urgently mediate a ceasefire between warring Hamas and Israeli occupation forces.<\/p>\n \u201cThe situation in the occupied Palestinian territory and Israel has reached fever pitch,\u201d said Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967.<\/p>\n \u201cThe United Nations and its Member States must intensify efforts to mediate an immediate ceasefire between the parties, before we reach a point of no return,\u201d said Albanese. \u201cThe international community has the responsibility to prevent and protect populations from atrocity crimes. Accountability for international crimes committed by Israeli occupation forces and Hamas must also be immediately pursued,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Since 7 October 2023, more than 1,900 Palestinians have been killed, including at least 600 children, more than 7,600 injured, and over 423,000 people have been displaced as a result of the Israeli strikes. This fate befell a population which has already experienced five major wars since 2008 in the context of an unlawful blockade imposed by Israel since 2007, which Albanese said has been widely condemned by the international community as collective punishment.<\/p>\n On 12 October, Israeli forces issued an order for 1.1 million Palestinians in north Gaza to move to the south within 24 hours, amidst ongoing airstrikes. The next day, Israeli forces reportedly began to enter Gaza in order to \u201cclear\u201d the area. Palestinians have no safe zone anywhere in Gaza, with Israel having imposed a \u201ccomplete siege\u201d on the tiny enclave, with water, food, fuel and electricity unlawfully cut off. Rafah, the only border crossing that remained partially open to the Gaza strip, was closed after damage caused by Israeli airstrikes.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is a grave danger that what we are witnessing may be a repeat of the 1948 Nakba, and the 1967 Naksa, yet on a larger scale. The international community must do everything to stop this from happening again,\u201d the UN expert said. She noted that Israeli public officials have openly advocated for another Nakba, the term for the events of 1947-1949 when over 750,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homes and lands during the hostilities that led to the establishment of the State of Israel. The Naksa, which led to Israel\u2019s occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in 1967, displaced 350,000 Palestinians.<\/p>\n \u201cIsrael has already carried out mass ethnic cleansing of Palestinians under the fog of war,\u201d the expert said. \u201cAgain, in the name of self-defence, Israel is seeking to justify what would amount to ethnic cleansing.<\/p>\n \u201cAny continued military operations by Israel have gone well beyond the limits of international law. The international community must stop these egregious violations of international law now, before tragic history is repeated. Time is of the essence. Palestinians and Israelis both deserve to live in peace, equality of rights, dignity and freedom,\u201d Albanese said.<\/p>\n ENDS<\/p>\n Francesca Albanese<\/strong>\u00a0is the\u00a0Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967<\/strong><\/a>, since 1 May 2022. Ms. Albanese is an Affiliate Scholar at the Institute for the Study of International Migration at Georgetown University, as well as a Senior Advisor on Migration and Forced Displacement for a think-tank, Arab Renaissance for Democracy and Development (ARDD).\u00a0She has widely published on the legal situation in Israel and the State of Palestine and regularly teaches and lectures on international law and forced displacement at universities in Europe and the Arab region. Ms. Albanese has also worked as a human rights expert for the United Nations, including the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the UN Relief and Work Agency for Palestine Refugees.<\/p>\n The Special Rapporteurs are part of what is known as the\u00a0Special Procedures<\/a>\u00a0of the Human Rights Council. Special Procedures, the largest body of independent experts in the UN Human Rights system, is the general name of the Council\u2019s independent fact-finding and monitoring mechanisms that address either specific country situations or thematic issues in all parts of the world. Special Procedures experts work on a voluntary basis; they are not UN staff and do not receive a salary for their work. They are independent from any government or organisation and serve in their individual capacity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Arabic\/\u0627\u0644\u0639\u0631\u0628\u064a\u0629 GENEVA (14 October 2023) \u2013 A UN human rights expert warned today that Palestinians are in grave danger of mass ethnic cleansing and called on the international community to urgently mediate a ceasefire between warring Hamas and Israeli occupation forces. \u201cThe situation in the occupied Palestinian territory and Israel has reached fever pitch,\u201d […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":285,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"country":[],"document-category":[1329],"document-source":[2025],"committee-meeting":[],"document-subject":[1769,1829,2265,6837,2005,6816,1805,6245],"entity":[1729],"document-language":[],"class_list":["post-289633","document","type-document","status-publish","hentry","document-category-press-release","document-source-special-rapporteur-on-the-situation-of-human-rights-in-the-opt","document-subject-armed-conflict","document-subject-casualties","document-subject-ceasefire","document-subject-ethnic-cleansing","document-subject-gaza-strip","document-subject-nakba","document-subject-occupation","document-subject-violence","entity-united-nations-system"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/289633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/document"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/285"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/289633\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":289634,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/289633\/revisions\/289634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"country","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/country?post=289633"},{"taxonomy":"document-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-category?post=289633"},{"taxonomy":"document-source","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-source?post=289633"},{"taxonomy":"committee-meeting","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/committee-meeting?post=289633"},{"taxonomy":"document-subject","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-subject?post=289633"},{"taxonomy":"entity","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/entity?post=289633"},{"taxonomy":"document-language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-language?post=289633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}