A United Nations human rights investigator defended Palestinians’ “right to resist” Israeli “occupation” after three days of fighting in which over 1,100 rockets were fired by Gaza militants at Israel.
“Palestinians’ right to resist is inherent to their right to exist as a people,” wrote the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Palestine, Francesca Albanese, on Twitter Monday morning. “An unlawful act of resistance does not make the resistance unlawful. An unlawful act of an unlawful occupation makes the occupation more unlawful (and the list on the desk of the [International Criminal Court] Prosecutor longer).”
Albanese did not immediately respond to an Algemeiner request for comment.
Human rights organizations immediately slammed the Italian lawyer‘s comments.
“As she knows, for all Palestinian groups — Hamas, Islamic Jihad or Fatah — ‘resistance’ means killing Israelis,” wrote Hillel Neuer, Executive Director of the Geneva-based UN Watch NGO. “By inciting to violence as a UN human rights expert, you are a disgrace to the United Nations and the noble principles of its Charter.”
