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United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food Michael Fakhri, at the United Nations Office in Geneva, Switzerland on March 08, 2024 [Muhammet Ikbal Arslan/Anadolu via Getty Images]
The UN special rapporteur on the right to food warned today that Israel is carrying out an unprecedentedly rapid campaign of starvation in Gaza, calling it “the fastest in modern history.”
“How is Israel able to starve 2.3 million people so quickly and so completely?” Michael Fakhri asked in a joint press briefing alongside other UN special rapporteurs in Geneva.
“This is the fastest starvation campaign in modern history,” Fakhri said.
As the entry of all humanitarian aid into Gaza is stopped by Israel, he said:
This is not a ceasefire by any definition. This is a slowing down of military violence, but … unfolding of death through starvation.
Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, told the briefing that even if the bombs and violence stop in Palestine today, “the genocide will continue because there are no ways to remedy the destruction” that has been made.
Albanese also warned that “the genocidal violence is leaking out in the West Bank,” saying the violence is now “as acute as ever.”
“I don’t know how many warnings the international community will need,” she said, adding: “We will miss human rights very much when they are no longer able to protect us.”
Ben Saul, the UN special rapporteur on protection of human rights, for his part, said that he denounces US President Donald Trump’s Gaza relocation plan, saying: “It would shatter the most fundamental rules of international order and the United Nations Charter since 1945.”
“It’s manifestly illegal to invade and annex foreign territory by force, to forcibly deport its population and to deprive the Palestinian people of their right to self-determination,” Saul said, underlining that any plan for the day after must be based on the popular will of the Palestinian people, including under any Arab proposal.
He also condemned Israel’s “continuing illegal military provocation in the wider region.”
A water treatment plant in Deir al-Balah, Gaza is on the verge of shutting down due to Israel’s order to cut electricity flow on March 10, 2025. (Photo: Moiz Salhi/Anadolu via Getty Images)
One expert noted that “this collective punishment of civilians” violates the Geneva Convention as well as a preliminary injunction from the International Court of Justice.
Outrage over the Israeli government’s decision to cut off electricity to a water treatment plant in the decimated Gaza Strip mounted on Monday.
As Common Dreams reported Sunday, Israeli Energy Minister Eli Cohen said that he “signed an order for the immediate halt of electricity to the Gaza Strip” as part of a policy to use “all of the tools that are at our disposal to ensure the return of all the hostages” taken by Hamas on October 7, 2023.
The Times of Israel noted that the new move by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government “was mainly expected to affect a single desalination plant, the only facility in the strip still running on a power line supplied from Israel.”
Responding on social media Monday, the Peace & Justice Project—founded by Jeremy Corbyn, an Independent member of the U.K. Parliament—condemned the cutoff as Israel’s “latest act of genocidal collective punishment against the Palestinian people.”
“This latest despicable act must be condemned by all governments and Israel must be sanctioned,” the group added.
Also speaking out on social media, Francesca Albanese, United Nations special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, declared, “GENOCIDE ALERT!”
“Israel cutting off electricity supplies to Gaza means, among others, no functioning desalination stations, ergo: no clean water,” Albanese said. “STILL NO SANCTION/NO ARMS EMBARGO against Israel means, among others, AIDING AND ASSISTING Israel in the commission of one of the most preventable genocides of our history.”
Unconscionable, and immoral:Israel stops electricity supply to Gaza to ratchet up pressure on Hamas | The Times of Israel www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_ent…
Izzat al-Rishq, a member of Hamas’ political bureau, called the move “a desperate attempt to pressure our people and their resistance through cheap and unacceptable blackmail tactics,” according to The Times of Israel.
He tied the decision to Israel halting all humanitarian aid into the Palestinian enclave last week, saying that “we strongly condemn the occupation’s decision to cut off electricity to Gaza, after depriving it of food, medicine, and water.”
Clean water has been a key issue in Gaza since October 2023. Oxfam said last July that Israel had systematically reduced the water available by 94%, with just 4.74 liters per resident obtainable each day—less than a third of the recommended minimum amount in emergencies.
A Human Rights Watch report from December accuses Israel of “extermination and acts of genocide” in Gaza “by intentionally depriving Palestinian civilians there of adequate access to water, most likely resulting in thousands of deaths.”
Netanyahu said that last week’s block on aid was done “in full coordination” with U.S. President Donald Trump, who proposed an American takeover of Gaza—a plan that Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Sunday “is taking shape.”
Israel and Hamas reached a fragile three-part cease-fire and hostage-release deal in January. Stage one expired on March 1, and negotiators have not yet agreed to terms for the second phase, but talks are being held in Qatar this week.
“Food cut off, almost all electricity cut off, with the remaining energy now cut off too, in order to cut off water supply. This is a ‘cease-fire’ Israel-style,” said Nick Dearden, director of the U.K.-based group Global Justice Now. “Barbaric collective punishment. Stop all weapons, suspend trade deals, economic sanctions now.”
Since we made this statement Israel has announced it is cutting off electricity to Gaza. We say again: the threat of starvation and denial of vital humanitarian aid and services should never be used as a tool of war or a bargaining chip in negotiations. www.quaker.org.uk/news-and-eve…
University of Michigan professor Juan Cole wrote Monday on his website, Informed Comment, that “the Israeli government is cutting Palestinian civilians in Gaza off from staples as a means of pressuring Hamas to release all Israeli hostages with no quid pro quo so that Netanyahu can start bombing again.”
“This collective punishment of civilians violates the Geneva Convention and other elements of internationally agreed on laws of war to which Israel is signatory,” noted Cole. “It also violates the preliminary injunction of the International Court of Justice, in which Israel also has membership.”
Israel faces an ongoing genocide case at the Hague-based court over its deadly blockade and assault of Gaza—assisted by billions of dollars in U.S. weapons. Like his predecessor, Trump’s administration is working to send even more arms to Israel.
Zionist Keir Starmer is quoted “I support Zionism without qualification.” He’s asked whether that means that he supports Zionism under all circumstances, whatever Zionists do.
Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
Armed state policeman in Bremen, Germany. Photo: Wikicommons
The German state has unleashed a fierce and sweeping crackdown on the Palestine solidarity movement in the country.
Germany’s policy of harsh repression of any expression of solidarity with Palestine and the struggle of the Palestinian people has continued unabated. In their attempt to silence all mentions of Palestine, German authorities have canceled events, censored activists and academics, violently repressed protests, and passed new legislation to further undermine support for Palestine solidarity.
However, despite their best efforts, people in Germany continue to defy what they see as illegitimate bans on speech and activity, and continue to express support for the Palestinian cause.
2024 ends with new attacks
In November 2024, the German parliament had passed a so-called “antisemitism resolution,” which though non-binding, sought to stifle any domestic activity to discourage participation in pro-Palestine movements.
At the beginning of December, Ramsis Kilani was expelled from the Left Party (Die Linke). The young Palestinian, who lost his father, stepmother and five siblings–ages four through twelve–in an Israeli attack in the Gaza Strip in 2014, was accused of “relativizing Hamas terror, selectively criticizing violence against women as a weapon of war, and rejecting Israel’s right to exist.”
Two weeks later, an “anti-colonial and peace Christmas market” in the west German city of Darmstadt provided the opportunity for several well-known politicians, the media, the local chapter of the “Central Council of Jews in Germany” and “concerned” evangelicals to file criminal charges and even make death threats towards the local Palestine group and church congregation that were jointly responsible for the Christmas market.
A raid to ban a no-longer-existing solidarity group
Less than a week later, on January 22, the police stormed several apartments in Frankfurt and Darmstadt. The reason given was to secure evidence to help ban the association “Palästina e.V.” However, the group had already dissolved in November 2024 and no longer existed.
Hitting children costs 800 euros
On January 24, a court dropped a case against a teacher who had punched a 16-year-old student in the face at a school in the Neukölln borough of Berlin on October 9, 2023. The teenager was attacked for bringing a Palestinian flag to school and displaying it in the playground. The fine for a teacher physically assaulting a minor in public was set by the court at just 800 euros. While the teacher has been on sick leave ever since–i.e. presumably on vacation–the student had to change schools. It is still unclear whether legal action will be taken against the student, for responding to the teacher’s assault by kicking him.
Further professional bans are being prepared
In line with the above court decision, the following week the German parliament passed a resolution that was ostensibly directed against “antisemitism and hostility towards Israel in schools and universities.” In reality, it was an addition to–and tightening of–the previous antisemitism resolution of November 2024. However, unlike the earlier resolution, this parliamentary motion received hardly any public attention and so the relatively broad criticism that had been voiced in October and November, which had extended into bourgeois circles, failed to materialize.
The new resolution is a massive attack on the freedom of research and science in Germany. It promotes the cooperation of teaching institutions with repressive and surveillance authorities, and new professional bans (Berufsverbote), which have a long and dark anti-communist tradition in the Federal Republic of Germany.
Arabic? Forbidden!
At the beginning of February, the Berlin police issued language restrictions for Palestine demonstrations: speeches, posters, slogans and music are only allowed in the German or English language. This is, therefore, a de facto ban on Arabic. This measure is not entirely new: in the last two years there have already been such bans imposed on Palestine demonstrations in various cities. In the summer of 2024, at the Palestine camp in front of Berlin’s Reichstag, Hebrew was banned alongside Arabic. What is new is that the Berlin authorities have declared that this ban applies to all gatherings in the German capital “until further notice.”
Palestinians to be deported
On the evening of February 12, two Palestinians from Gaza were arrested and detained in Berlin: the young men were to be deported to Greece the next day. After protests in Berlin, numerous angry calls to the Greek airline that was to carry out the deportation, and legal intervention, the deportation was apparently postponed. With its “asylum compromise” in 1993 (the de facto removal of the basic right to asylum from the German constitution) and the Dublin II Regulation of the European Union in 2003, the Federal Republic of Germany created the legal basis for deporting almost all asylum seekers to “safe third countries.” As an EU member state, Greece is considered a “safe third country,” however Greek camps are notorious for their inhumane living conditions, which is why a suspension of deportation seems realistic.
The two victims are said to come from Khan Younis and to be well-known for their activism against the Gaza genocide. The right-wing Springer press called them “conductors of the Palestinian protests” in Berlin and in its usual racist manner, described them as “clan” members. They are not the first Palestinians to be affected by deportations since October 7, 2023. The German state appears to be using its racist policies not only to divert attention from grievances and to divide the population, but also to get rid of political opponents who are standing up against racism, war, and genocide.
Another “scandal” at the Berlinale
This year’s Berlinale, which took place in Berlin from February 13 to 23, made headlines in the German mainstream media due to alleged “antisemitism scandals.” The Chinese director Jun Li read out a speech by Iranian actor Erfan Shekarriz, in which he said that millions of Palestinians were suffocating under Israel’s brutal settler colonialism. He accused the Federal Republic of Germany of supporting the genocide of the Palestinians. The Scottish actress Tilda Swinton, who was awarded the Honorary Golden Bear for her life’s work, declared her respect for the BDS movement at the press conference. Once again, the German media handled these statements in a scandalous manner, while the Central Council of Jews in Germany ranted about the voicing of “Hamas slogans”.
Preparations for further ban on solidarity group
At the same time, a newspaper article revealed that the German domestic intelligence service (Verfassungsschutz) in the east German state of Saxony is apparently monitoring the Leipzig-based “Handala” solidarity group. Although this group has appeared in the intelligence service’s regional report since 2023, the state of Saxony’s Ministry of Science is now also keeping an eye on it, as some of its members allegedly work at Leipzig University. The domestic intelligence service categorizes Handala’s solidarity work as a form of “secular foreigner extremism,” claiming it’s “particularly opposed to the idea of international understanding” (Völkerverständigung) and shows solidarity with Hamas.
The last two accusations are alarming because last summer, the group “Palestine Solidarity Duisburg” (PDSU) was banned by North Rhine-Westphalia state’s Ministry of the Interior on the basis of exactly the same unfounded allegations. The repressive Saxony authorities thus appear to be preparing for a ban on Handala by first creating a favorable mood in the ministries and the bourgeois media.
No stage for the UN Special Rapporteur
Most recently, two events of the UN Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese, in Munich and Berlin were canceled due to political pressure. Albanese was supposed to speak at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich on February 16 and at the Freie Universität (“Free University”) of Berlin on February 18. After the second venue was canceled on short notice, the event was still able to take place in the editorial offices of the left-wing daily newspaper Junge Welt. Though the event was not shut down, as was the Palestine Congress last year, the police followed the example set in Duisburg in December 2023. There, authorities had declared a discussion featuring Zaid Abdulnasser and myself a “closed-door meeting,” surrounded the venue with police cars, and insisted that the state security forces had to attend in order to be able to “intervene.” This is what happened this time in Berlin, too.
Austria: An impending party ban and a “Hamas journalist”
In Germany’s neighboring countries, things are also looking anything but good when it comes to freedom of expression in connection with Palestine.
In Austria, for example, the right-wing FPÖ and the conservative ÖVP are apparently planning to ban the “Gaza List,” which was founded last year and took part in the National Council elections in September 2024. In addition, the British journalist Richard Medhurst was arrested in Vienna at the beginning of February: according to his report, he was summoned by the Austrian immigration authorities, but was confronted on the spot by secret service agents who showed him a search warrant and then drove him to his apartment and confiscated his technological devices. The accusation against the journalist, who has lived in Austria for years, was “membership of Hamas,” or the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas. He was threatened with ten years in prison.
Switzerland: Journalist arrested and deported
Ali Abunimah, the journalist and managing director of the internationally renowned online independent news media outlet The Electronic Intifada, was arrested in Switzerland on January 25 and subsequently deported after two nights in custody. Abunimah had been invited to give a lecture. He had already been questioned for an hour by the authorities when he arrived at Zurich airport the day before his arrest. During his detention, he was questioned in the absence of a lawyer and was denied the right to call his family, as he reported after his release. It later became known that the Zurich cantonal police had submitted an application to the Swiss national authorities to ban the journalist from entering the country. However, they had rejected the request. Apparently, massive pressure was then exerted to get the ban passed on the second attempt–this time successfully. According to the Tages-Anzeiger, Mario Fehr was also involved. The right-wing Social Democrat and law-and-order hardliner is a well-known supporter of Israel. He publicly described Abunimah as an “Islamist Jew-hater” and accused him of inciting violence.
France: ban on solidarity group and life imprisonment
French courts dealt the Palestine solidarity movement two blows at once on February 20. First, the ban on the “Collectif Palestine Vaincra,” which was issued in March 2022 and provisionally suspended in April of the same year, has now been upheld. The organization thus meets the same fate as “Samidoun” and Palestine Solidarity Duisburg in Germany, which were banned in November 2023 and May 2024 respectively. Secondly, on February 20, it was decided to postpone the appeal hearing on the release of Georges Ibrahim Abdallah until June, because France’s “National Anti-Terrorist Prosecutor’s Office” lodged an objection. The Lebanese communist and pro-Palestinian freedom fighter has been in a French prison for 40 years and was originally due to be released on December 6, 2024.
UK Labour Party Shadow Foreign Secretary repeatedly heckled at a speech to the Fabian Society over his and the Labour Party’s support for and complicity in Israel’s genocide of Gaza.
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A United Nations vehicle accompanies aid convoys in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, during the delivery of humanitarian aid after a ceasefire, January 22, 2025 [SAEED JARAS/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images]
International law is fighting for relevance. The outcome of this fight is likely to change the entire world’s political dynamics, which were shaped by World War II and sustained through the selective interpretation of the law by dominant countries.
In principle, international law should always have been relevant, if not paramount, in governing the relationships between all countries, large and small, to resolve conflicts before they turn into outright wars. It should also have worked to prevent a return to an era of exploitation that allowed Western colonialism practically to enslave the Global South for hundreds of years.
Unfortunately, international law, which was in theory supposed to reflect global consensus, was hardly dedicated to peace or genuinely invested in the decolonisation of the South.
From the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan to the war on Libya and numerous other examples, past and present, the UN was often used as a platform for the strong to impose their will on the weak. And whenever smaller countries fought back collectively, as the UN General Assembly often does, those with veto power in the Security Council and military and economic leverage used their advantage to coerce the rest based on the maxim “might is right”.
It should, therefore, hardly be a surprise to see many intellectuals and politicians in the Global South arguing that, aside from paying lip service to peace, human rights and justice, international law has always been irrelevant.
This irrelevance was put on full display through 15 months of a relentless Israeli genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza that killed and wounded over 160,000 people, a number that, according to several credible medical journals and studies, is expected to rise dramatically.
Yet, when the International Court of Justice (ICJ) opened an investigation into “plausible genocide” in Gaza on 26 January, 2024, followed by a decisive ruling on 19 July regarding the illegality of the Israeli occupation of Palestine, the international system began showing a pulse, however faint. The International Criminal Court’s (ICC) arrest warrants issued for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant in November were more proof that West-centred legal institutions are capable of change.
The angry American response to all of this was predictable.
Washington has been fighting against international accountability for many years. The US Congress under the George W Bush administration passed a law as early as 2002 that shielded US soldiers “against criminal prosecution” by the ICC, to which the US is not a party. The so-called Hague Invasion Act authorised the use of military force to rescue American citizens or military personnel detained by the ICC.
Naturally, many of Washington’s measures to pressure, threaten or punish international institutions have been linked to shielding Israel under various guises. The global outcry and demands for accountability following Israel’s genocide in Gaza, however, have once again put Western governments on the defensive. For the first time, Israel has been facing the kind of scrutiny that has rendered it, in many respects, a pariah state.
Instead of reconsidering their approach to Israel, and refraining from feeding the war machine, many Western governments lashed out at civil society merely for advocating the enforcement of international law.
Those targeted included UN-affiliated human rights defenders.
On 18 February, German police descended on the Junge Welt venue in Berlin as if they were about to apprehend a notorious criminal. They surrounded the building in full gear, sparking a bizarre drama that should have never taken place in a country that perceives itself as democratic. The reason behind the security mobilisation was none other than Francesca Albanese, an Italian lawyer and an outspoken critic of the Israeli genocide in Gaza.
Ms Albanese also happens to be the current UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories. If it were not for the UN’s intervention, she could have been arrested simply for demanding that Israel must be held accountable for its crimes against Palestinians.
Germany, however, is not an exception. Other Western powers, lead amongst them the US, are taking part in this moral crisis. Washington has taken serious and troubling steps, not only to protect Israel and itself from accountability to international law, but also to punish the very international institutions, its judges and officials for daring to question Israel’s behaviour.
Indeed, as recently as 13 February, the US sanctioned the ICC’s chief prosecutor due to his stance on Israel. After some hesitance, Karim Khan did what no other ICC prosecutor had done before when he issued those arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant. They are currently wanted for “crimes against humanity and war crimes”.
The moral crisis deepens when the judges become the accused, as Khan found himself at the receiving end of endless Western media attacks and abuse, in addition to US sanctions.
As disturbing as all of this is, there is a silver lining.
There is an opportunity for the international legal and political system to be fixed, based on new standards, justice that applies to all and accountability that is expected from and for all.
Those who continue to support Israel have practically disowned international law altogether. The consequences of their decisions are dire. But for the rest of humanity, the Gaza war can spark a global reckoning, and provide the opportunity to reconstruct a more equitable world, one that is not moulded by those who are powerful militarily, but by the need to stop senseless killings of innocent children, women and the elderly.
Francesca Albanese during the event “Reclaiming the Discourse: Palestine, Justice, and Truth”. Source: screenshot
UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese’s talks have faced intense state pressure across Europe, with Germany at the forefront
Talks by UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories Francesca Albanese in Europe continue to face fierce pressure. Following the withdrawal of an invitation by some Dutch parliamentarians, German authorities have gone to great lengths to obstruct events where Albanese was scheduled to speak. Two German universities canceled events that had already been announced and had garnered widespread interest. However, activists secured alternative venues, ensuring Albanese could still present the results of her work.
Yet even non-institutional venues were not spared from pressure. The publisher of Junge Welt, which stepped in to host the event “Reclaiming the Discourse: Palestine, Justice, and Truth“ after it was cast out from its original location, found itself facing nearly 100 police officers. Inside the hall, around 200 attendees gathered to hear Albanese speak. Despite protests, the police remained stationed at the venue throughout the event, serving as a clear reminder of the dire state of free expression in Germany. While the hosts are considering legal action against the police, such repression is expected to persist, as left-wing activists remain under surveillance and students organizing Palestine solidarity events at universities face persecution.
Organizations hosting Albanese, including the political platform DiEM25, have described these pressures as “a direct assault on the rule of law and the core principles of democracy.” Similarly, the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance – Reason and Justice, along with members of the left party Die Linke, condemned the suppression of academic freedom and the silencing of discussions on Palestine soon after the news of the cancellations.
According to Albanese, Germany is the first country she has visited recently where universities have capitulated to pressure and canceled her speeches. “This gives me a sense of the state of the debate in this country,” she told attendees of Reclaiming the Discourse. Throughout the discussion, the UN Special Rapporteur emphasized the lengths to which many European governments are willing to go to suppress debates on Palestine—Germany, in particular, leading the charge. Despite the authorities’ repressive actions, she insisted that “it’s not a crime to talk about Germany’s implications and responsibilities vis-à-vis what’s happening in Palestine.”
She also urged participants to reject fear and organize against the climate of repression surrounding discussions on Palestine in Europe, describing it as an atmosphere lacking oxygen. “It’s no longer [just] about Palestine,” she continued. “When I see police officers in Europe using the stick against people standing against injustice, when I see Jewish people in this country being lectured about what antisemitism is—I say something has gone wrong.”
“I wouldn’t feel comfortable living in a country where you cannot talk about a people who are being genocided,” she added.
In their attempts to silence Albanese, Zionist groups and other right-wing organizations have attempted to smear her as antisemitic. Some have fallen for this ruse, but many more continue to stand by her and amplify her work. While audience members noted that university staff largely failed to publicly support her or defend academic freedom following the cancellations, Albanese pointed to the legal and academic experts, including in the Global South, who have spoken out, urging institutions to refuse such repression.
“While our politicians and universities fail to show respect for a UN Special Rapporteur, we, as international lawyers, fail a colleague and a luminary in these dark times by not standing up for her against false and unfounded accusations,” wrote public and international economic law expert and professor Isabel Feichtner. “Most of all, however, we fail our students, broader society, and the very idea of human rights, which—if they are to have any meaning—must serve the powerless.”
