Francesca Albanese, the UN rapporteur for Gaza and the West Bank, praised South Africa yesterday for bringing its “historic” genocide case against Israel and accused the Jewish state of plunging Palestinians into apocalypse.
“Two years after the beginning of the genocide, and despite the ceasefire, the situation in [Gaza] remains nothing short of apocalyptic. I use the term deliberately,” Albanese said in delivering the Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture at the Sandton Convention Centre.
“Gaza is a wasteland of rubble, refuse, and human remains, where survivors cling to life amid disease, deprivation, and the relentless weight of violence unseen anywhere this century."
Israel launched its offensive in Gaza two years ago, following the October 7 attack by Hamas in which 1,200 people were killed and about 250 taken hostage.
“Over 240,000 killed or injured ... and the numbers rise daily,” said Albanese. “Entire neighborhoods obliterated. City blocks lying in dust. Clean water is scarce, food nearly nonexistent, medicine and electricity critically short. Prisoners, tortured and raped, bodies mangled, desecrated, and left in streets.”
The aiudience of about 3,500 gave Albanese a warm welcome, chanting pro-Palestinian slogans.
“Excruciating suffering is widespread, systematic, and by design,” she said. “Even during the fragile ceasefire, it continues. Over 100 Palestinians have been killed since Israel committed to ceasefire on October 10.”
Israel’s actions in Gaza were “a textbook case of genocide”.
“The ongoing genocide — visible in the totality of Israeli criminal actions against the totality of Palestinians across the totality of the lands slated for annexation — has been meticulously prepared over decades, and enabled by long-standing violations, impunity, and international complicity.
“Genocide, it seems, is the dormant gene of an apartheid regime rooted in settler-colonialism,” said Albanese.
“This explains how, while Palestinians have been killed and maimed in the thousands every fortnight for the past two years, the Tel Aviv stock exchange kept soaring, growing 213% and amassing $226bn (about R4-trillion) in market gains in the first 18 months of the genocide.
“Arms companies have turned over near-record profits by equipping Israel with cutting-edge weaponry that has obliterated a virtually defenceless civilian population in Gaza,” she said.
“The machinery of global construction giants is razing Gaza to the ground.”
Albanese noted that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has affirmed that Israel’s occupation is illegal — “a violation amounting to racial segregation and apartheid that must end”.
“When South Africa brought the genocide in Gaza before the ICJ, while much of the West looked away or defended and armed the assailant, you did more than filing a case. You opened the door for other countries to act.
“Above all, this is the first settler-colonial genocide ever brought before an international court — a moment of historic resonance, echoing ... through every land where indigenous peoples have barely survived genocide,” said Albanese.
This act has rekindled faith in international law — a symbolic restoration, a quiet revolution in the history of international law. In doing so, you proved again who you are… heirs to Mandela
— Francesca Albanese, UN rapporteur
“This act has rekindled faith in international law — a symbolic restoration, a quiet revolution in the history of international law. In doing so, you proved again who you are… heirs to Mandela.”
South Africa brought its genocide case in December 2023, and it has since become a source of friction in relations with the administration of US President Donald Trump.
Albanese said Mandela “could not have been born anywhere else. He was fully, truly, beautifully South African. His legacy invites to embrace memory not as nostalgia but as awareness and resistance.”
She said Mandela’s lesson, that “the struggle for freedom is never the burden of one person alone, not even one people alone”, continued to reverberate.
“When Nelson Mandela walked out of prison, he did more than free himself. He and his comrades rewrote the grammar of power, turning domination into dignity.
“In this time of utter diplomatic hypocrisy, political cowardice and self-interest, the words of Nelson Mandela resonate louder than ever. In 1997, he said: ‘Having achieved our own freedom, we can fall into the trap of washing our hands of difficulties that others face… Yet we would be less than human if we did so.’
“And this moment calls on all of us not to wash our hands of the hell into which Israel has plunged Falasteen [Palestine].”
In July, the US imposed sanctions on Albanese, saying she had “spewed unabashed antisemitism, expressed support for terrorism, and open contempt for the US, Israel and the West”.
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