The Trump administration has sanctioned Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur for the Palestinian territories, on the grounds of bias and singling out Israel in her human rights inquiry. It is the latest move following a U.S. failure to pressure the UN to remove her and coincides with the visit to Washington by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu.
Albanese, an Italian human rights lawyer, has accused Israel of genocide in Gaza—a claim both Israel and the U.S. strongly deny. She has also advocated for International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrants for Israeli officials and named several U.S. companies in a report published recently as being involved in helping Israel's activities in Gaza.
The sanctions will probably affect her travel to the U.S., although their reach is yet to be seen. The U.S. withdrew from the UN Human Rights Council this year and has stayed away from sessions in recent years.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio justified the sanctions by saying that Albanese was waging a political and economic war against the U.S. and Israel. Opponents such as Human Rights Watch denounced the action as attempting to silence a UN expert for doing her job and seeking accountability at the ICC.
Albanese's July 1 report had accused Western defense and other companies of benefiting from Israeli military operations. It linked real estate, technology, finance, and even academic sectors with operations that were perpetuating Israeli policies in Gaza and the West Bank.
Israel dismissed her report as baseless and biased, charging her with downplaying the strength of Hamas and abusing her mandate. Even though Albanese is not a member of the UN system in a formal sense, she is reporting to the Human Rights Council as an independent observer of global human rights issues.
Trump administration sanctions are only one aspect of a general tightening of the noose on pro-Palestinian activism in America, with arrests and deportations of students and educators involved in such protests.
The fighting began on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas militants killed about 1,200 people in Israel and kidnapped 251. Israel's response since then has claimed over 57,000 Palestinian lives, Gaza's Health Ministry says, most of whom have been reported to be children and women.
Albanese recently tweeted that the Gaza violence is genocide and ethnic cleansing and the security of the world is based on justice and accountability for all.
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