Rubio sanctions UN human rights official who called for criminal action against Israel
'The United States will continue to take whatever actions we deem necessary to respond to lawfare and protect our sovereignty and that of our allies,' Rubio said.
Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Justice's Task Force to Combat Antisemitism called on the United Nations to remove her from her post, citing what it called Albanese's 'silence and selective outrage.'
Appointed in 2022, the Italian scholar has called for sanctions and an arms embargo against Israel since its full-scale invasion of the Gaza Strip in October 2023. The Israeli government banned Albanese from the country in February 2024 after she publicly stated that 'the victims of the October 7 massacre were not murdered because of their Jewishness, but in response to Israeli oppression.'
The U.N. Human Rights Council did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Hill
8 minutes ago
- The Hill
Netanyahu pushes forward with Gaza City operation despite opposition
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Widespread opposition from within Israel and international condemnation have not deterred Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from his plan to expand the Israeli military's operation in Gaza City. The Israeli military began calling medical officials and international organizations in the northern Gaza Strip on Thursday to encourage them to evacuate the area ahead of the expanded operation. It comes the day after the military announced the call-up of 60,000 reservists and the extension of 20,000 reservists currently serving to support the expanded operation. Netanyahu is expected to give his final approval for the operation during a security cabinet meeting Thursday night, according to an official who was not authorized to speak to the media. The approval comes as at least 36 Palestinians were killed in strikes in central and southern Gaza Strip on Thursday, according to local hospitals, and people protested in Israel and Gaza. Operation in Gaza City could begin in days Although Israel has targeted and killed much of Hamas' senior leadership, parts of Hamas are actively regrouping and carrying out attacks, including launching rockets towards Israel, the official said. Israeli troops are already operating in the city's Zeitoun neighborhood and in Jabaliya, a refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, to prepare the groundwork for the expanded operation, which could begin within days. The planned offensive, announced earlier this month, comes during heightened international condemnation of Israel's restrictions on food and medicine reaching Gaza and fears that many Palestinians will be forced to flee. United Nations' chief Antonio Guterres repeated his call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza on Thursday as Israel prepared to launch a new assault in Gaza City and other populated areas. 'I must reiterate that it is vital to reach immediately a ceasefire in Gaza, and the unconditional release of all hostages to avoid the massive death and destruction that a military operation against Gaza City would inevitably cause,' Guterres told a news conference on the sidelines of the 9th Tokyo International Conference on African Development hosted by Japan. Protests in Israel and Gaza People protested against the expansion of the war in Israel and Gaza on Thursday. In Gaza City, hundreds of people gathered, waving flags and posters among destroyed buildings, rubble and tents for the displaced in a rare show of opposition against the war and forced migration. Women and children joined the protest, holding placards reading 'Save Gaza' and 'Stop the war, stop the savage attack, save us,' as Palestinian music played in the background. 'We want the war on Gaza to stop. We don't want to migrate. Twenty-two months … it's enough. Enough death. Enough destruction,' said Bisan Ghazal, a woman displaced from the eastern part of Gaza City. 'We have lost more than 10% of our residents, 85% of our buildings and infrastructure and much of our cultural and historic heritage,' said Amjad Al-Shawa, director of the Palestinian NGO Network. 'All of Gaza is threatened with destruction.' In Israel, families of some of the 50 hostages still being held in Gaza gathered in Tel Aviv to condemn the expanded operation. Israel believes around 20 hostages are still alive. 'Forty-two hostages were kidnapped alive and murdered in captivity due to military pressure and delay in signing a deal,' said Dalia Cusnir, whose brother-in-law, Eitan Horn, is still being held captive. Eitan's brother, Iair Horn, was released during the last ceasefire. 'Enough to sacrifice the hostages. Enough to sacrifice the soldiers, both regular and reservists. Enough to sacrifice the evacuees. Enough to sacrifice the younger generation in the country,' said Bar Goddard, the daughter of Meni Goddard, whose body is being held by Hamas. Additional protests are planned for Thursday night in Tel Aviv. Death toll in Gaza rises At least 36 people were killed on Thursday in Gaza and the death toll from deadly strikes Wednesday in northern Gaza rose by another 39 people, Shifa hospital reported. Airstrikes killed 19 people in central Gaza, including five people attempting to get aid and eight people sheltering at schools for displaced people, according to Al Awda Hospital. Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza said at least nine people were killed attempting to access aid and eight people were killed in an airstrike near Khan Younis. The Israeli military did not have immediate comment on the strikes but has frequently accused Hamas of hiding military infrastructure in civilian areas. In the central city of Deir-al Balah, airstrikes destroyed at least 100 tents of people displaced by the fighting, according to Al Aqsa hospital, which is located nearby. Witnesses said smoke rose from the targeted area and fires spread quickly through the makeshift shelters. Civil defense teams rushed to the site, working to extinguish the flames. Families, many of them with children, were left sifting through the ashes of what little they had managed to bring with them during earlier evacuations. Mohammad Kahlout, displaced from northern Gaza, voiced anger and despair at the repeated attacks on civilians. 'We came to the safe zone, which they call safe. (We were given) only five minutes to gather our belongings, and then they bombed the camp,' he said. 'We are civilians, not terrorists. What is our fault, and what is the fault of our children, to be displaced again? This is a camp for civilians, refugees. There is no resistance or anyone.' The Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza said Thursday the death toll from the Israel-Hamas war has reached 62,192. Additionally, two more people have died from starvation and malnutrition, bringing the total number of such deaths to 271, including 112 children, the Health Ministry said. The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals. The ministry does not say how many of the dead were civilians or combatants, but it said women and children make up around half of them. The U.N. and many independent experts consider its figures to be the most reliable estimate of wartime casualties. Israel disputes its toll but has not provided its own. Hamas-led militants started the war when they attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 251. Most of the hostages have been released in ceasefires or other deals. Hamas says it will only free the rest in exchange for a lasting ceasefire and an Israeli withdrawal.
21 minutes ago
Israel begins attack on Gaza City for takeover
Israel has begun the "first stages of the attack on Gaza City" on Wednesday as it plans to call up to 60,000 reservists in order to occupy the city, according to an Israeli military official.
Yahoo
37 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Localized Gaza ceasefires crumble Israel's former war strategy
The IDF admits there is a dangerous food situation in Gaza, even if short of the claimed mass starvation, and an awful public relations situation there. It's easy for the pro-Israel crowd to cry foul about global media accusations of mass starvation in Gaza – being made knowingly or naively in the service of Hamas – given that there is a dangerous food shortage, and there are likely individuals who are starving, but no one has been able to actually prove mass starvation. And it's easy for Israeli critics to condemn Israel for 'more genocides' over the situation. But the brutal truth is that the IDF admits there is a dangerous food situation in Gaza, even if short of the claimed mass starvation, and an awful public-relations situation there – all of this because of several Israeli policies that some in the defense establishment warned about but that were overruled by the political echelon. The polices were loudly completely blocking food aid from March to May, taking over 75% of Gaza's territory, launching the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) at a time when food was scarce, and playing a tug of war with international aid groups over how they distribute aid to try to cut Hamas out of the picture. For much of 2024, or after US President Donald Trump took office in 2025, some elements of the political echelon – with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu eventually joining them sometime late last year – started to pressure the IDF to make radical policy changes to break Hamas's control of food in Gaza. This was one major element of undermining not only its military power but also its political power. These same elements, again, with support from Netanyahu, eventually pressed for the IDF to take over large portions of Gaza to break Hamas's political control over the civilian population. What else could have been done other than just giving Hamas everything it wanted on a silver platter? Former IDF chief of staff Lt.-Gen. (ret.) Herzi Halevi and former defense minister Yoav Galant had pressed to try out much smaller versions of the GHF project as early as 2024 in northern Gaza, although not in southern Gaza. They wanted to try to have small areas in Zeitoun, Beit Hanun, and other parts of northern Gaza receive food from a humanitarian entity other than the standard United Nations-sponsored entity, which was allowing Hamas to take control of the food aid. Halevi and Gallant said Netanyahu and some of his hard-right coalition partners had blocked the initiatives as far back as in early 2024. They did not want to carry out any activities that smacked of a postwar Gaza period. Netanyahu wanted to crush Hamas's battalions in Rafah, which only happened in mid-2024. After that, he wanted to prevent Hamas from trying to return to various Gaza areas from which it had been routed by the IDF. His coalition partners wanted to keep the war going and were hoping to eventually find an opening to resettle Gaza with Israelis. Before taking larger responsibility for a larger number of Palestinians, a smaller-scale GHF-style experiment to test its potential would have been able to work through some of the issues in building a radical new and untested non-UN alternative to providing food aid. Also, this would have happened in a time period when the Palestinians had relatively more food saved in inventory storage areas, i.e., if there were hiccups with a few food deliveries, the Palestinian civilian population would not be in any immediate danger. In contrast, the current Israeli policy since March was to loudly and proudly block all new food aid until May to try to pressure Hamas, and then open GHF in a framework when Palestinian civilians were already at one of the worst food shortages of the war (even if not at a point of mass starvation). While GHF took over food aid for southern and central Gaza, the IDF allowed UN groups to continue to handle food aid in northern Gaza. Part of the time, Hamas continued to control the northern Gaza food aid, and part of the time, the IDF tried to get the international aid groups to hew close to standards and tactics that would prevent Hamas from controlling the food. Humanitarian aid project in Gaza difficult to operate on practical level Halevi and Gallant had warned that such a sudden, ambitious Gaza-wide food-control project would be very difficult to operate successfully on a practical level. They had also cautioned that such a Gaza-wide project, especially wrapped in with a policy of taking over the majority of Gaza's territory, could lead to the IDF and Israel being stuck with paying for and delivering the food aid to the Palestinians, while also giving Hamas the prize of being able to easily mark Israel as causing 'starvation.' Halevi and Gallant had urged both smaller pilot GHF-style, food-aid programs as well as handing Gaza over, e.g., to Egypt, the UAE, and some foothold for the Palestinian Authority. This initiative might have failed back then for many reasons, but we will never know. Netanyahu and his coalition partners had hoped that with IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir now in charge, taking over 75% of Gazan territory, blocking food aid from March until May, and then rolling out the GHF and new limits on food-aid groups in May, that Hamas's political power would be wrecked. If successful, this would have the near-term benefit of compelling Hamas to return more hostages in exchange for another IDF ceasefire and withdrawal. In the long term, this could have the benefit of permanently ending Hamas's political power in Gaza. Maybe Netanyahu still has an outside shot at achieving his goal. Maybe continued IDF control of 75% of Gaza and the threat of the military taking over additional areas will finally get Hamas to return more hostages on Netanyahu's terms. But on Sunday, it seemed like the policies had come crashing down. Israel has dropped many of its registry tactics to try to keep Hamas from controlling the food in Gaza. It has greatly increased the number of trucks of food aid per day that it is approving for entry into Gaza, which will likely allow Hamas to start storing more aid for future months. And it still cannot claim that Gaza is flush with food aid, focusing on 600 trucks ready to go to Gazans, being that from January to March, 600 trucks were going into Gaza every day. Israel is also providing a 'localized' ceasefire and trying to present this as a non-ceasefire, which only covers 25% of Gaza. But for the food to get to that 25%, a much larger portion of Gaza will need to be under ceasefire status – maybe even the majority of Gaza. Moreover, all or nearly all of the Hamas terrorists are hiding in the 25% of humanitarian areas where the 'localized' ceasefire is holding securely in place, and some of their smaller numbers in other places can now make their way to those areas to obtain immunity. Hamas getting most of what they want All of this means that Hamas is getting most of what it wants: a ceasefire and a return to increased control of food – without having returned any hostages to Israel. This could also make Hamas less likely to rush toward a formal ceasefire and hostage deal if it is getting much of what it needs unilaterally by having successfully used the world and Israel's own strategic errors to pressure Jerusalem into giving up much of its leverage. Or it might agree to a deal, having achieved much of what it wanted with global media pressure on Israel. Of all of the Israeli errors, the costliest and seemingly least beneficial was the March-May 2025 period of completely blocking food aid. It does not matter that there was no mass starvation then, because so much aid had entered between January and March that there was stored inventory. It also does not matter that food aid was restored in May before any mass starvation took place. By taking such a position, Israel made it hard to have credibility with the global community afterward when trying to campaign for the GHF as a legitimate way to replace the old way of food distribution controlled by Hamas. And it made it hard to get the world to believe that Israel was not trying to starve Gaza. (It also does not help that some Israeli ministers are publicly in favor of starving Gaza.) The GHF may still have some successes. Soon, it will likely have handed out more than 100 million meals in Gaza. But all of these other 'original sins,' along with logistical and tactical failures by the mixed IDF-GHF coordination, have made it very hard to promote GHF as a success globally. Ultimately, Halevi and Gallant warned early about how some of these well-intentioned policies, seeking to break Hamas's political control, could blow up in Israel's face. It is looking more and more like their warnings were spot on.
