Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur for the Palestinian territories, has courted controversy among Israel supporters for her one-sided faulting of Israel for its conflict with the Palestinians, and comments she has made which have been widely interpreted as antisemitic, including frequent comparisons between the Holocaust and Israel’s policies vis-à-vis the Palestinians.
In a rare extended interview with Israel-based media, Albanese sat down with i24NEWS. Repeatedly asked whether Hamas’ invasion and killing of Israeli security forces on October 7 was justified, Albanese said, “Why is this so unbelievable? You seem to be puzzled by this. What is the right to resist?”
She also accused Israel and American Evangelical Christians of weaponizing antisemitism in order to silence her and other critics of Israel, and claimed Jews who see Israel as a state of the Jewish people have an “obligation to make sure that Israel…behaves according to international law.”
The following interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
i24NEWS: “You have been very clear in your public statements, internationally and to Palestinians directly, that they have the quote-unquote, right to resist the occupation. In terms of October 7, specifically, where does that right start and where does that right end?
Albanese: There is no question that people like the Palestinians, who are deprived of their right of self-determination, have the right to resist, and the UN General Assembly recognized the right to resist for the Palestinian people in particular, but in line with international law.
Therefore, we have no doubt whatsoever that what Hamas did on the 7th of October is not in line with international law, because the moment Hamas targeted civilians, by killing, by taking hostages, by brutalizing and injuring civilians, these are crimes and cannot be justified. This is not legitimate resistance. Now, I know that many Palestinians would pick an issue with that. However, an illegitimate act of resistance doesn’t delegitimize the resistance itself.
i24NEWS: Does that extend to the soldiers that were killed on October 7? Does that extend to the police forces that were killed on October 7? Does that extend to any cross border activity where…
Albanese: The limit is clear. Killing a militant, killing a soldier is a tragedy under international law, but when there is an armed conflict, like in this case, killing a soldier is not illegal. Pretty straightforward.
i24NEWS: So according to international law, and according to your views, Hamas is justified in crossing the delineated border, going over to Israel’s side and killing soldiers on Israel’s side of the border.
Albanese: Killing soldiers is not an international crime. I mean, why is this so unbelievable? You seem to be puzzled by this. What is the right to resist for the Palestinians? No one wants to live under oppression.
i24NEWS: You say that as if Gaza is occupied. There’s been a blockade. And it magically got named an occupation.
Albanese: You talk of the blockade as if it was a standalone entity, which it’s not. The blockade is part of a legal framework. A blockade can happen within the context of an occupation, because there is control. So already saying that there is a blockade, it’s recognizing that the law of occupation applies.
i24NEWS: There have been blockades throughout history. Just a few years ago, there was a blockade on Qatar by Saudi Arabia by other countries. No one for a second said that Qatar was being occupied. There are other blockades that are instituted. Nobody called those occupations. So just the fact that there is a blockade does not equal occupation, correct?
Albanese: Everyone who’s against the idea that Gaza is occupied, everyone who challenges this, which is enshrined in the law, and there are UN resolutions and even the ICRC, who’s very conservative, agrees that this is still an occupation. Why? Because under Article 42 of the Hague Regulations, in order to have an occupation, the determining factor is effective control. When the Hague Regulations were written, effective control was just something that could be exercised through boots on the ground, military boots on the ground. Israel does have effective control over the Gaza Strip, and it’s manifested by the blockade. (Writer’s note: The UN Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights’ own interpretation of Article 42 calls for the uncontested presence of foreign forces as a necessary factor in determining whether an occupation exists. Israeli forces departed Gaza in 2005.)
Not only that, the control of natural resources, who enters and exits Gaza, is determined by Israel. The currency is determined by Israel. And it’s forced to be the shekel because Israel also administers the tax revenues in the Gaza Strip. (Note: Israel is mandated to administer tax revenues per a provision in the Oslo Accords.)
Do you realize what life is like for the Palestinians under occupation? You asked me a question that made me think that you really don’t see what life is under occupation.
i24NEWS: It seems from our conversations and from your public statements, that you’re unaware of what life has been like for Israelis. The fact that Israel has made peace with Egypt, the fact that Israel has made peace with Jordan, the fact that Israel has normalized relations several of its Arab neighbors, the fact that Israel has accepted multiple times peace plans that were put forth, not by Israel, but by the international community. And still, the Palestinians have turned Israel’s hand away every single time. And it seems to me you’re at a loss as to why the Israeli populace has drifted further right. And you’re not seeing the fact that Israel has managed to make peace or have peaceful relations with many of its neighbors. Why not the Palestinians?
Albanese: You’re talking of the Egyptians who have their own state. You’re talking of Jordanians who have their own state, while Israel occupies the land that belongs to the Palestinians to have their own state. Israel annexed East Jerusalem in 1980. Israel has occupied East Jerusalem, together with the West Bank and the Gaza Strip since 1967. And in East Jerusalem, Israel takes down house after house after house on the grounds that there are no building permits for, or no license to have those houses. And Israel, during the so–called peace process has doubled, if not tripled, the number of colonies [settlements]. These are the facts on the ground, Michael. I don’t care about the peace agreement with Jordanians and Egypt, because this has nothing to do with the occupied Palestinian territory.
i24NEWS: Since Egypt was mentioned, as you know, after the 1967 war Israel controlled the Sinai peninsula, a huge swath of land that gave Israel a massive buffer zone vis-à-vis Egypt. Israel turned that over to Egypt in exchange for peace. Why is it so difficult to fathom that if the Palestinians offered peace to the Israelis, rather than slapping away their hand every time, that Israel would be willing again…
Albanese: What is the peace you’re talking about? I don’t understand.
i24NEWS: Land for peace.
Albanese: Look, Israel must withdraw its military presence from the occupied Palestinian territory, as it had to do from the Sinai, and as it has to do from the Golan.
i24NEWS: It seems, from your point of view, that Israel should have to live with neighbors who threaten it, who can be within striking distance at any time, whether it’s from the West Bank, whether it’s from Gaza, whether it’s from the Golan Heights, that Israel should just have to live with it rather than creating circumstances in which its security is guaranteed.
Albanese: Israel has been creating the conditions for its insecurity for this generation and the next generations to come. Because frankly, we are still thinking and we are still discussing it in the pre-October 7 mentality. I have no idea how Israel will manage to secure itself after what it has done to the people in Gaza.
Because with 16,000 people killed, Israel claims that in these operations as of the 7th of October, it has killed from 1,500 up to 2,000 Hamas combatants. It means that 90 percent of the people that Israel has killed in the Gaza Strip alone are civilians. Tell me how this is going to make Israel more secure.
i24NEWS: Well, according to you, Israel has no right to defend itself. This is what you’ve said, vis-à-vis October 7.
Albanese: No no, no, no, no. I didn’t say that.
Israel has the right to protect itself, to protect its territory, to protect the citizens. But there are two issues here. One is that I don’t think that Israel can claim the right of self-defense in the territory that it occupies,
including the West Bank, where it has troops on the ground and it keeps on building colonies after colonies in East Jerusalem, which it continues to annex and Judaize to fulfill this goal of establishing a Jewish majority everywhere, which is for me, it’s insane, because it is eliminatory of the other. For me, and again I agree with many Israelis on this issue, the basis should be the recognition of the other, the recognition of the humanity of the other, and the equality and freedom of the other. So you’re telling me Israel should have this right (of self-defense), but in fact it’s the Palestinians living without rights between the river and the sea. What are you talking about? I mean, I understand your fear, understand the Israelis’ fear, but we are talking about the people who are dying, they are being slaughtered day after day. Can we find a solution that allows everyone to live?
i24NEWS: In a perfect world? Yes. It’s obviously a bit more complex than that, or you wouldn’t be in the role that you’re in right now. But I want to ask again. You have said Israel only has a right to defend itself within its own territory. When questioned on what should Israel’s proper response be to October 7, you laid out two potential scenarios.
Albanese: What I said is that Israel cannot claim the right of self-defense under the UN Charter, which is different from the right to protect itself. It’s a completely different question. Israel doesn’t have the right to wage a war against the people it maintains under belligerent occupation.
i24NEWS: So you’re talking about Article 51 of the UN Charter, which only deals with states versus states. And since Hamas is not a state, then Israel cannot cite the UN Charter in that particular instance.
Albanese: It’s not only that Israel cannot claim the right of self-defense. There is an advisory opinion, based on established jurisprudence of the International Court of Justice, which is the supreme judicial organ of the UN So while recognizing the security threats emanating from the occupied territory, the Court of Justice said that Israel needs to operate within the framework of international law, meaning international humanitarian law, securing order, establishing and maintaining order and public life and not invoking the right to wage a war. This is the difference.
i24NEWS: What you’re effectively saying is that there’s no recourse for October 7. According to you, Israel should turn to the United Nations to somehow demilitarize Hamas. The UN can’t even condemn Hamas in the General Assembly for the atrocities on October 7. Yet you suggest that one recourse is to have the UN go demilitarize Hamas. Respectfully, that’s simply not reasonable. And another thing you suggested in an interview was to turn to law enforcement. And law enforcement simply doesn’t apply here. Investigators can go track down every piece of information in the world. That doesn’t make the threat from Hamas go away. So you cite international law here but in effect, in practice, in the real world — not in scholarly books or law books — in the real world, Israel has no recourse for October 7.
Albanese: Israel has recourse. Israel occupies the Palestinian territory illegally, continues to colonize the land, to brutalize the people, to let its armed settlers go around and terrorize everyone. And the Palestinians have no recourse to justice, because the Israeli army is not there to protect the Palestinians. It is there to protect the settlers who are illegal. And in Gaza, Israel has established an illegal blockade. Israel has also prevented a connection with the outside world that would allow for real change, a political change.
Hamas has been considered an asset by Netanyahu and to the Israeli government to maintain the status quo of no war, no peace. So excuse me, what did the Palestinians have to do? I’m not justifying what Hamas has done. I’m just asking what they are left with.
i24NEWS: Hamas has control over Gaza, because Hamas doesn’t need to take care of its people. Because the UN is more than happy to go in there, take international money, have their jobs bank in Gaza, and provide for the people through international contributions instead of demanding that Hamas take care of its own people. The UN says “No, don’t worry about that. You build your rockets, you build your military machines, you prepare to attack Israel. We’ll take care of your people for you.”
Albanese: There is no evidence for that.
i24NEWS: There’s no evidence?
Albanese: It’s so false. The United Nations does the utmost to ensure peace and stability in the region, despite what the Israeli government says. I know because I’ve worked for UNRWA, and I’ve engaged with the Israeli government.
The Israeli government is very happy to have the United Nations managing the conflict, managing the humanitarian costs without taking political responsibility for it. The moment you have any UN official saying something that is vaguely critical of Israel, and so perceived as political, then the criticism starts, but this attack against the UN is absolutely disingenuous. It’s totally baseless.
i24NEWS: I think if you would survey the people within Gaza, and within the West Bank as well, they would say their governments don’t take care of them, they would say that the money is going elsewhere, they would say that their governments are corrupt, and therefore the UN is coming to fill in the void. It’s simply a statement of fact that the UN is happy to fill the void that Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, because they are too corrupt and are too militant, don’t fill. Why is that a disingenuous statement?
Albanese: Is this a real interview? The UN doesn’t work on happiness. The UN works based on mandates. Each UN agency has a mandate, and UNRWA in particular has a General Assembly mandate. So it doesn’t operate in a vacuum. It operates to certain rules, and doesn’t fill in the gap for anyone if the government is corrupt. Let’s have elections.
Can the Palestinians have elections? Free elections? No, they can’t. It is because of Israel. The peace and security of Israel cannot happen at the expense of all of the others, first and foremost, the Palestinians who are under their military rule.
i24NEWS: We are running out of time, so I want to ask you one more question here. You have complained that your critics have not really talked about the facts, have not spoken about international law, but have tried to smear you directly. You said in a recent interview that there has been “a weaponization of antisemitism, which is shocking in recent years. That’s dangerous for the Palestinians. It’s also dangerous for Jewish communities, because it increases their resentment.” You went on to say “Frankly, we have to let the dogs continue to bark at the airplane a little bit.” Can you expound on what you mean by “dogs barking at the airplane?”
Albanese: It’s something an Israeli lawyer told me, who was reassuring me because these continuous accusations of antisemitism were very distressing for me, because I come from a country… I feel very strongly about my country’s antisemitic past. And I have so much respect for the Italian — and also beyond — for the Jewish communities for what they have gone through. And I always denounced the fact that the Holocaust wouldn’t have been possible without the centuries of discrimination before it.
So being accused of antisemitism, because of my views of the state of Israel — I’m not against the state of Israel. I’m against Israeli policies toward the Palestinians.
So I remember when I was still very upset by these attacks [on me]. There was an Israeli friend of mine who told me it looks like it’s dogs barking at an airplane. Eventually you will have to deal with it in the sense that you are the airplane, let them bark. This is the thing. In every country where I go, I meet with Jewish communities — not all of them. I mean, not all Jewish communities are happy to meet with me for a number of reasons. But those who do meet with me, we are always on the same page, in the sense that I stand against any form of racism against anyone. And I will always speak in defense of any Jews, including those who feel very strongly about the state of Israel. It’s their right. I don’t judge.
I totally understand what it means for a Jewish person to see the state of Israel as the state of the Jewish people. I don’t judge it. I don’t question it. It’s their obligation to make sure that Israel, as a partner of the international community, behaves according to international law. That’s it.
i24NEWS: So who’s weaponizing antisemitism?
Albanese: The state of Israel, first and foremost. And then a number of people who are not even Jews. I mean Christian Evangelicals in the U.S., and on the right — like what I see in France — are those who are weaponizing antisemitism. Or the extreme right, which is antisemitic itself.
It’s no different from my own country. It’s incredible that in my own country, parties who are in the government have been historically antisemitic and have never regretted the antisemitic legacy of their parties, have this stance with the state of Israel, which doesn’t mean standing with Israeli people.
i24NEWS: I would invite you the next time you’re in the United States to come with me to my home borough in Brooklyn, and visit some of the Jewish neighborhoods there where Jews are assaulted on a regular basis. I would invite you to come to some of the college campuses, including Columbia, and the City University of New York, and to talk to the Jewish students there and get their thoughts on the weaponization of antisemitism, because I think that they would have a much different and possibly angry view toward those that are accusing them of weaponizing antisemitism.
Albanese: I accept the invitation. So next October, I will make sure that we have these plans in my agenda. The second thing is that I’m 100% convinced that antisemitism is an issue.
And I’m 100% convinced that whatever has happened as of the 7th of October has made many less secure, more isolated, more fearful. But this is why we need to have this dialogue, because for me, antisemitism is discriminating against Jews because they are Jews. This has nothing to do with the appraisal of Israel’s performance as a member state of the United Nations.
But again, I accept your invitation and consider it done.
