GENEVA
\nA UN rights expert said on Monday there were \u201creasonable grounds\u201d to determine that Israel has committed several acts of \u201cgenocide\u201d in Gaza, also evoking \u201cethnic cleansing\u201d.
\nFrancesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the rights situation in Palestinian territories, said there were clear indications that Israel had violated three of the five acts listed under the international genocide convention.
\n\u201cThe overwhelming nature and scale of Israel\u2019s assault on Gaza and the destructive conditions of life it has inflicted reveal an intent to physically destroy Palestinians as a group,\u201d she said in a report.
\nAlbanese, an independent expert appointed by the UN Human Rights Council but who does not speak on behalf of the United Nations, said she had found \u201creasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating the commission of\u2026 acts of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza has been met\u201d.
\nThe report, entitled \u201cAnatomy of a Genocide\u201d, listed those acts as: \u201cKilling members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to the group\u2019s members; and deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part\u201d.
\nIsrael\u2019s diplomatic mission in Geneva said the country \u201cutterly rejects the report\u201d.
\nAlbanese\u2019s report, which she is due to present to the Human Rights Council on Tuesday, maintained that Israel\u2019s \u201cgenocidal acts\u201d followed \u201cstatements of genocidal intent\u201d.
\nShe said that statements by some senior Israelis declaring an intent to forcibly displace Palestinians and replace them with Israeli settlers meant that \u201cevacuation orders and safe zones have been used as genocidal tools to achieve ethnic cleansing\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
GENEVA A UN rights expert said on Monday there were \u201creasonable grounds\u201d to determine that Israel has committed several acts of \u201cgenocide\u201d in Gaza, also evoking \u201cethnic cleansing\u201d. Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the rights situation in Palestinian territories, said there were clear indications that Israel had violated three of the five acts […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":396568,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-396545","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n