The UN special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories claimed this week that Israel has no right to self-defense against Hamas under international law and accused the country of “war crimes”.
Francesca Albanese’s comments came during an address to the National Press Club of Australia on Tuesday as she deemed Israel’s right to self-defense “non-existent” under international law as she targeted the war-torn country for its “relentless bombardment”. took Gaza” and other actions.
According to Albanese, Israel cannot claim the right to self-defense because it is not threatened by another state.
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“Israel cannot claim the right of self-defense against a threat emanating from territory it occupies, territory under belligerent occupation,” Albanese said at the event in Canberra, Australia.
The US allows the UN Security Council resolution calling for a pause in the fighting in Gaza to pass without condemnation from Hamas
Francesca Albanese’s comments came during an address to the National Press Club of Australia on Tuesday, as she called Israel’s right to self-defense “non-existent” under international law. (Atilgan Ozdil/Anadolu Agency)
“What Israel was allowed to do was to maintain law and order, repel the attack, neutralize whoever carried out the attacks, and then proceed with law and order measures… not to wage war,” she added.
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Anne Bayefsky, director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust, criticized Albanese’s comments, saying they went “in line with all of her other legally indefensible claims” related to the conflict.
“From October 7 to today, no major UN actor has clearly stated that Israel has a right to self-defense. This is despite the fact that the UN Charter clearly states that every UN member has the inherent right to self-defense,” Bayefsky claimed in an email to Fox News Digital. “In the deafening silence, anti-Israel and anti-Semitic extremists hiding under the guise of UN “experts” have gone on the offensive, proclaiming that Israel has no UN Charter right to self-defense against the barbaric Palestinian terrorists who their lives butchered and slaughtered people. The Nazis said the same thing about their Jewish victims.
“Albanese’s vile statements go hand in hand with all of her other legally indefensible claims, such as defending a Palestinian ‘right of resistance’ that ‘requires force.'” Likewise, Navi Pillay, head of a so-called United Nations “commission of inquiry” founded in 2021 against Israel, has repeatedly spoken of a Palestinian right to “armed struggle” since October 7th. “These are not misguided lawyers. They are advocates of hatred, anti-Semitism and deadly violence against the Jewish people. It is an atrocity that they are given UN titles and a global platform at all,” Bayefsky added.
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Albanese claimed that Israel’s actions against the Palestinian people in Gaza, which have been relentless since Hamas terrorists invaded Israel on October 7, were “wrong.”
AOC LEADS TWO DOZEN Democrats calling for an Israeli ceasefire over “violations against children” in Gaza
“How many more people have to die,” she asked at the event.
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Israeli Defense Forces vehicles drive in the Gaza Strip on November 9th. (AP/Leo Correa)
Albanese also expressed concern about the possibility that Israel “may commit the crime of genocide against the Palestinian people” and addressed the international community in her speech. She claimed that most state governments were almost “totally paralyzed” by the unfolding crisis in the Middle East. .
“In the face of all this, the international community is almost completely paralyzed,” she said. “I am being generous when I say that the United Nations is experiencing its greatest political and humanitarian failure since its founding.”
“Individual member states, particularly in the West, and Australia is no exception, are on the sidelines,” she added. “At best, mutter remarkable words of condemnation for Israel’s success or remain silent for fear of limiting Israel’s…claimed right to self-defense. Whatever that means.”
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The international community’s position on this issue, Albanese said, is “a prime example of how governments around the world have ethically failed to promote peace and security for both Palestinians and Israelis on the basis of international law, which is the end of the 56-year-old patient of Israel meant “and the realization of Palestinian self-determination and freedom.”
In addition, Albanese demanded, among other things, a ceasefire and the return of Israeli hostages.
She also used her speech to defend Palestinians, saying they had been subjected to a “violent structure of dispossession, confiscation of land and forcible displacement.”
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Smoke rises from an explosion in the Gaza Strip, seen from southern Israel on November 14. (AP/Victor R. Caivano)
ANTISEMITISM REVEALED
“If it is widespread and systemic, [it] “It’s not just a war crime, it’s a crime against humanity,” Albanese said.
Following Albanese’s comments, Austria’s Volker Türk, the UN high commissioner for human rights, on Thursday condemned human rights abuses in the Israel-Hamas war and concluded that an international investigation was needed.
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“Extremely serious allegations of multiple and profound violations of international humanitarian law, whoever commits them, require rigorous investigation and full accountability,” Turk said in a briefing to U.N. member states from Geneva.
In response to the UN’s increasing anti-Israel actions, Lior Haiat, Israel’s State Department spokesman, told Fox News Digital: “Israel and the IDF operate under international law. If there is an investigation, it would have to be a war.” Crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the terrorist organization Hamas in the October 7 massacre and since, including the massacre of over 1,200 people and the kidnapping of 239 people , including babies, children whose parents were murdered in front of them, entire families, Holocaust survivors and an investigation into how Hamas uses the Palestinian people as human shields and uses hospitals, schools and mosques as a cover for its terrorist activities.”
Late last month, Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan called for António Guterres to resign and criticized the U.N. secretary general for allegedly rationalizing the Oct. 7 killing of some 1,200 people, including Americans, by Hamas in Israel .
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UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk on Thursday condemned human rights abuses in the Israel-Hamas war and concluded that an international investigation was needed. (KHALED DESOUKI/AFP)
Calls for the UN leader to resign are growing after “shameful” comments about Hamas attacks on Israel
Guterres said Hamas’ attacks “did not take place in a vacuum” and that the “Palestinian people have been subjected to an oppressive occupation for 56 years.” However, Guterres’ claim was rejected by Erdan, who insisted that Guterres’ comments were “pure blood libel” and said: “This is false. It was the opposite.”
Guterres responded to criticism of him by saying in a statement to the UN Security Council: “I am shocked by the misrepresentations of some of my statements yesterday at the Security Council. As if… as if I were justifying acts of terror by Hamas.” That’s wrong. It was the opposite.”
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On Wednesday, the United States approved a United Nations Security Council resolution calling for a halt to fighting in Gaza, although it did not condemn Hamas.
Security Council members listen as Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner General of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, speaks during a meeting on the Israel-Hamas war at United Nations headquarters October 30, 2023 in New York City. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
Fifteen Security Council members adopted the resolution on Wednesday calling for a ceasefire for a “sufficient number of days” in the Gaza Strip between Israel and Hamas. The resolution also calls for the “unconditional release” of the hostages taken by Hamas during the Oct. 7 terrorist attack.
Twelve council members voted in favor of the resolution, while the United States, Russia and Britain, which have veto power, abstained.
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The Hamas-controlled Health Ministry claimed last week that more than 10,000 people have been killed in Gaza since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, now in its sixth week.
Fox News has reached out to the spokesman for the United Nations Secretary General for comment.
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Fox News’ Adam Sabes and Benjamin Weinthal contributed to this report.