The UN Human Rights Council has approved Francesca Albanese’s second three-year term as Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories. The action defied opposition from a number of pro-Israel forces. On the last day of the United Nations Human Rights Council‘s 58th session, the council voted to endorse a second three-year mandate for Albanese, running to 2028.
She was under growing pressure from pro-Israel politicians and pressure groups calling for an end to her mandate. A number of countries had also shown unwillingness to approve her reappointment as a result of her harsh condemnations of Israel.
Albanese has, in all her official reports and media addresses, consistently drawn attention to what she refers to as ethnic cleansing and genocide of Palestinians.
An unprecedented incitement campaign was intensified, led by Zionist lobbying groups against Francesca Albanese. Pro-occupation organizations such as B’Tsalem and UN Watch were calling for her three-year mandate not to be renewed, in retaliation for her powerful positions criticizing Israeli violations in Gaza and the West Bank.
The most fervent of those campaigns has come from UN Watch, which circulated a 60-page dossier asserting that she peddles “antisemitism” and “terrorism” under her guise of UN Special Rapporteur. The organization went on to put out a petition calling for her renewal to be blocked by the Council and requesting her immediate ouster at their last session.
Other organizations—the World Jewish Congress, the Zionist youth group Betar, among others—have also targeted Albanese. Betar is accused of threatening her in a recent London visit, referring to Israel’s airstrikes against Lebanon in 2023.
According to unconfirmed sources, Albanese, known for her straightforward tone and consistent criticism of displacement approaches and ethnic cleansing against Palestinians, became the target of a severe incitement movement, including death threats.
She had been directly threatened by pro-occupation individuals and groups, including threats of targeting her with wireless communication devices—an endeavor to threaten and silence her. These groups have accused her of employing her UN role as a platform to “spread antisemitism and promote Hamas,” despite Albanese having consistently employed her reports and statements to reveal the ongoing offenses and abuses perpetrated by Israeli forces against innocent Palestinian civilians, especially during the recent Gaza war.
In her public pronouncements, Albanese underlined that Israel exploits the cover of war against Hamas to pursue an expansionist settler agenda to take over Palestinian territory and expel its people by force. Such hardline stands incurred the wrath of the Zionist regime and its Western lobby circles, who were quick to target her and question her honesty.
