Israel’s diplomatic mission in Geneva said the country “utterly rejects the report”, describing it as “simply an extension of a campaign seeking to undermine the very establishment of the Jewish State”.”Israel’s war is against Hamas, not against Palestinian civilians,” it said in a statement, slamming Albanese’s “outrageous accusations”.Israel has long been harshly critical of Albanese and her mandate, which the United States on Monday called “biased against Israel.”Washington is “aware” of Albanese’s report but has “no reason to believe Israel has committed acts of genocide in Gaza,” a US official told AFP.Last month Israel slapped a visa ban on her after she made comments denying that Hamas’s October 7 attack, which sparked the war in Gaza, was anti-Semitic.Israel’s relentless bombardment and ground offensive in Gaza has killed more than 32,300 people, mainly women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run Palestinian territory.South Africa has already filed a complaint against Israel before the International Court of Justice, alleging its assault on Gaza amounts to a violation of the genocide convention.The court has yet to rule on the underlying issue, but earlier this year ordered Israel to do everything it could to prevent genocidal acts during its campaign and also to allow in humanitarian aid.’Ethnic cleansing’ In Albanese’s report, which she is due to present to the Human Rights Council on Tuesday, she maintained that Israel’s “genocidal acts” followed “statements of genocidal intent”.Statements by some senior Israeli officials spelling out an intent to forcibly displace Palestinians and replace them with Israeli settlers, she said, indicated that “evacuation orders and safe zones have been used as genocidal tools to achieve ethnic cleansing”.The report also found that Israel was treating all Palestinians and their infrastructure “as ‘terrorist’ or ‘terrorist-supporting’, thus transforming everything and everyone into either a target or collateral damage”.”In this way, no Palestinian in Gaza is safe by definition,” it said.”This has had devastating, intentional effects, costing the lives of tens of thousands of Palestinians.”The report also stressed that Israel’s mistreatment of the Palestinians had not begun on October 7.”Israel’s genocide on the Palestinians in Gaza is an escalatory stage of a longstanding settler colonial process of erasure,” it said.
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