"She believes she is up against not just Trump’s and Benjamin Netanyahu’s governments, but also “predatory elites” around the world who are prepared to defend the accumulation of unprecedented riches with violence. Israel’s war against Palestinian resistance is one of many battlefields, she says."
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| ‘I go around with cash or I have to borrow from friends or from family members’ … Francesca Albanese in Geneva last month. Photograph: Jordi Ruiz Cirera/The Guardian |
Interview by Julian Borger in Geneva
Tue 14 Apr 2026
In retrospect, arranging to interview Francesca Albanese in a cafe was not the best plan. Before we could start, the waitress wanted a photo with the Italian human rights lawyer. So did the cashier. Then the cook came out of the kitchen in his whites for a group photo. Some of the customers wanted their turn. Albanese was gracious with all comers and chatty in three languages, so the process took some time.
Albanese, 49, has been getting similar rock star welcomes everywhere she goes lately, which is not the norm for unpaid UN legal experts. In other times, her job title – UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967 – would sound like a recipe for obscurity. She is one of more than 40 special rapporteurs, human rights experts appointed to do pro bono investigations and reports on areas of concern.
These are no ordinary times, however. The untreated wound of Israel-Palestine has shown its capacity every generation to give the rest of the world a fever. The Hamas attack on 7 October 2023, which killed about 1,200 people, provoked a ferocious Israeli response that has killed more than 75,000 Palestinians in Gaza, displaced more than 90% of its population and reduced the overwhelming bulk of the territory to ruins.
Albanese was not the first person to describe the Israeli military campaign as a genocide, but she was the first person with the initials UN in her title to do so. She has used her megaphone consistently over the past two years not just to condemn the Israeli government and its military, but also the constellation of western states and corporations that have abetted them. Her message, delivered emphatically in person and in a series of UN reports, is that we are living in an interlocking system that has shown itself capable of mass killing.
For her public stance, Albanese’s life has been threatened and her family put in danger... READ MORE https://www.theguardian.com/law/2026/apr/14/my-life-has-become-a-rollercoaster-francesca-albanese-death-threats-danger-dread-accusing-israel-genocide