By Latheef Farook:
Francesca Albanese, The U.N. special rapporteur, is one of the most courageous crusaders against ongoing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. Because of this, she is blacklisted and treated as if she is a terrorist. She is an Italian legal scholar and expert on human rights who was confirmed for another three years in April 2025.
However a member of the European Parliament (MEP), Matjaz Nemec, publicly presented the nomination of Francesca Albanese, for the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize, following its official submission to the Norwegian Nobel Committee.
Francesca Albanese vehemently condemned “brutality of the Israeli genocide” in Gaza, saying it was carried out “with the complicity of far too many states .She called on the international community to take urgent action, saying: “The States who want to preserve what remains of multilateralism must build new alliances fast, and stand as UNITED NATIONS for real, cornering the bullies.”
Francesca has taken aim at states complicit in Israel’s genocide in Gaza, calling for a new multilateralism that will prevent it from happening again in future. She said the ongoing genocide in Gaza is a collective crime, sustained by the complicity of influential Third States that have enabled longstanding systemic violations of international law by Israel.
Framed by colonial narratives that dehumanize the Palestinians, this live-streamed atrocity has been facilitated through Third States’ direct support, material aid, diplomatic protection and, in some cases, active participation. It has exposed an unprecedented chasm between peoples and their governments, betraying the trust on which global peace and security rest.
The world now stands on a knife-edge between the collapse of the international rule of law and hope for renewal. Renewal is only possible if complicity is confronted, responsibilities are met and justice is upheld.
Israel had, she said, left Gaza “strangled, starved, shattered”. Her report, which examines the role of 63 states in Israel’s actions in both Gaza and the West Bank, calls out the multilateral system for “decades of moral and political failure” in a colonial world order sustained by a global system of complicity”.
Genocide had been enabled, she said, through diplomatic protection in international “fora meant to preserve peace”, military ties ranging from weapons sales to joint trainings that “fed the genocidal machinery”, the unchallenged weaponisation of aid, and trade with entities like the European Union, which had sanctioned Russia over Ukraine yet continued doing business with Israel.
Her report analyses how the “live-streamed atrocity” was facilitated by third states, zooming in on how the United States provided “diplomatic cover” for Israel, using its veto power at the UN Security Council seven times and controlling ceasefire negotiations. Other Western nations had collaborated, it said, with abstentions, delays and watered-down draft resolutions, reinforcing “a simplistic rhetoric of ‘balance’”.
In the present report on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, Francesca Albanese, examines the unfolding horrors in the occupied Palestinian territory. While the wholesale destruction of Gaza continues unabated, other parts of the land have not been spared. The violence that Israel has unleashed against the Palestinians post-7 October is not happening in a vacuum, but is part of a long-term intentional, systematic, State-organized forced displacement and replacement of the Palestinians.
This trajectory risks causing irreparable prejudice to the very existence of the Palestinian people in Palestine. Member States must intervene now to prevent new atrocities that will further scar human history.
Forty-eight separate corporate actors, along with their parents, subsidiaries, franchisees, licensees and consortium partners across sectors are identified in the Special Rapporteur’s report, including weapons manufacturers, technological corporations, financial institutions and construction and energy firms.
Albanese found that these entities have failed their most basic legal responsibilities to exercise their leverage to bring an end to the violation at stake or terminate relations and disengage. Instead, they have treated Israel’s illegal enterprise in the occupied Palestinian territory as ordinary economic activity—willfully ignoring documented, systemic abuses, even as atrocities mounted after 7 October 2023.
“This report shows why Israel’s genocide continues: because it is lucrative for many,” Albanese said. She warned that the International Court of Justice 2024 rulings and the ICC arrest warrants should have put all actors—including corporations—on notice.
“Palestine is a mirror held up to the world’s moral and political failures,” she said. Recalling reckonings over corporate complicity in apartheid South Africa and Nazi Germany, Albanese said Palestine today represents a defining moment of whether global markets can exist without promoting and profiting from injustice and impunity.
Meanwhile a member of the European Parliament (MEP), Matjaz Nemec, publicly presented the nomination of Francesca Albanese, for the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize, following its official submission to the Norwegian Nobel Committee.
The nomination was signed by nearly 300 eligible proposers from 33 countries, including Brazil, South Africa, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom, according to a statement shared by Nemec on US social media company X.
Nemec said the nomination “is an expression of respect for the courage, efforts, and perseverance of individuals who defend fundamental human values in the most difficult circumstances” and “represents a contribution to peace that transcends political divisions.”
He highlighted Albanese’s work in upholding international law and human rights, noting that she continues her mission despite facing “strong political pressure” and sanctions from Israel and the United States.
Francesca is barred from entering the U.S. even to appear at the United Nations in New York City, to present one of her two annual reports. The other is delivered at the United Nations Office at Geneva.
Francesca’s assets in the U.S. have been frozen, including her bank account and her U.S. apartment. The sanctions cut her off from the international banking system, including blocking her use of credit cards. Her private medical insurance refuses to reimburse her medical expenses. Hotel rooms booked under her name have been cancelled. She can only operate using cash or by borrowing a bank card.
Institutions, including U.S. universities, human rights groups, professors and NGOs, that once cooperated with Francesca, have severed ties, fearful of penalties established for any U.S. citizen who collaborates with her. She and her family receive frequent death threats. Israel and the U.S. have mounted a campaign to get her removed from her U.N post.
Francesa is proof that when you stand steadfastly with the oppressed, you will be treated like the oppressed. Israel has killed more than 70,600 people, mostly women and children, and injured over 171,100 others in attacks in Gaza since October 2023.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot publicly demanded that Francesca Albanese step down from her UN mandate, accusing her of statements incompatible with the neutrality expected from a UN rapporteur.According to Le Parisien, Barrot described her remarks as “outrageous statements” and said she “n o longer has legitimacy to exercise this mandate.”
