The UN rapporteur Francesca Albanese sanctioned and subject to death threats
April 2026
Francesca Albanese is the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories since 1967. She has documented the extreme violence meted out on the Palestinians by Israel settlers and the IDF and for her pains has been sanctioned by the US President Donald Trump as a ‘specially designated national’. She is the first UN to have received this designation which puts her alongside drug traffickers and dictators. This has had serious consequences for her including the seizure of her Washington apartment and not being able to use a credit card anywhere in the world because they are all processed by American firms. There was considerable lobbying for this to happen.
She has received this treatment because of her reporting on the extreme violence used against Palestinians by Israel and by calling their behaviour genocide.
We are currently witnessing the invasion of southern Lebanon and the demolition of many villages.
In the West Bank, settler violence in 2026 so far, has displaced more Palestinians than in the whole of 2025. Around 1,000 have been killed since 2023 a quarter of whom were children. This is part of a pattern of violent displacement, demolition, evictions and crippling movement and access restrictions. The UN reports that ‘Israeli authorities directed, participated in or enabled settler violence’.
Albanese was interviewed recently in a Guardian piece and expands on her role and the politicians around the world who have been complicit in the violence. She has little time for Sir Keir Starmer and the aid and cover he has given Israel describing him as a ‘monster’ for arguing in 2023 that Israel ‘has the right’ to cut off electricity and gas to Gaza. “You’re not a human rights person at all” she says “if you say such a monstrosity. And the university who gave you your law degree should take it away from you.” [In the subsequent furore Sir Keir claimed he was “questioned by members” and he “made it clear it is not and has never been my view that Israel had the right to cut off water, food, fuel or medicines. International law must be followed.”]
Exceptionally ruthless physical and psychological abuse
This March, the UN published its latest report on the treatment and torture of hundreds of Palestinians and an extract says:
“In custody, Palestinian captives have been subjected to exceptionally ruthless physical and psychological abuse, on a scale and with an intensity without precedent in the history of Palestine/Israel. Brutal beatings, sexual violence, rape, lethal mistreatment, starvation and the systematic deprivation of the most basic human conditions have inflicted profound and lasting scars on the bodies and minds of tens of thousands of Palestinians and their loved ones. These practices demonstrate that the detention system of Israel has descended into a regime of systemic and widespread humiliation, coercion, and terror, aimed at stripping Palestinians not only of their liberty but of their dignity, identity and even the most basic sense of humanity. Far from isolated excesses, such conduct has been institutionalized within detention structures, politically endorsed by Israeli authorities and publicly justified, or even celebrated, by segments of society”. [para 84]
A report by UN Watch repudiates all of Albanese’s conclusions. The organisation is affiliated to the American Jewish Community.
Peace of any kind seems a long way off in the region. The bombing and assassinations in Iran, the massive death toll in Gaza, increasing violence in the West Bank and now the invasion of southern Lebanon seems to show a pattern of violence as a kind of first port of call for the nation. Assisted by the US they are immensely powerful militarily and seem to have no real wish to compromise and certainly not recognise a Palestinian state. The tragedy is that it will not bring them the security they so desperately desire. A new generation of people with hatred towards Israel is in the making and will come to haunt them in years to come.
The treatment of Albanese is wholly unjustified and vindictive. Her reports can be criticised and errors pointed out in the normal way. But the death threats to her and her family, the seizing of her apartment and other coercive measures are wholly unacceptable.
Amnesty in Salisbury & South Wiltshire 