UN investigator says US sanctions over her criticism of Israel will
seriously impact her life
[July 30, 2025]
By GIADA ZAMPANO
ROME (AP) — An independent U.N. investigator and outspoken critic of
Israel’s policies in Gaza says that the sanctions recently imposed on
her by the Trump administration will have serious impacts on her life
and work.
Francesca Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur for the West Bank and
Gaza, is a member of a group of experts chosen by the 47-member U.N.
Human Rights Council in Geneva. She is tasked with probing human rights
abuses in the Palestinian territories and has been vocal about what she
has described as the “genocide” by Israel against Palestinians in Gaza.
Both Israel and the United States, which provides military support to
its close ally, have strongly denied that accusation. Washington has
decried what it called a “campaign of political and economic warfare”
against the U.S. and Israel, and earlier this month imposed sanctions on
Albanese, following an unsuccessful U.S. pressure campaign to force the
international body to remove her from her post.
“It’s very serious to be on the list of the people sanctioned by the
U.S.,” Albanese told The Associated Press in Rome on Tuesday, adding
that individuals sanctioned by the U.S. cannot have financial
interactions or credit cards with any American bank.
When used in “a political way," she said the sanctions “are harmful,
dangerous.”
“My daughter is American. I’ve been living in the U.S. and I have some
assets there. So of course, it’s going to harm me,” Albanese said. “What
can I do? I did everything I did in good faith, and knowing that, my
commitment to justice is more important than personal interests.”
The sanctions have not dissuaded Albanese from her work — or her
viewpoints — and in July, she published a new report, focused on what
she defines as “Israel’s genocidal economy” in Palestinian territories.
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Francesca Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur for the West Bank
and Gaza, is interviewed by the Associated Press in Rome, Tuesday,
July 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)
“There’s an entire ecosystem that has allowed Israel’s occupation to
thrive. And then it has also morphed into an economy of genocide,”
she said.
In the conclusion of the report, Albanese calls for sanctions
against Israel and prosecution of “architects, executors and
profiteers of this genocide.”
Albanese noted a recent shift in perceptions in Europe and around
the world following an outcry over images of emaciated children in
Gaza and reports of dozens of hunger-related deaths after nearly 22
months of war.
“It’s shocking," she said. "I don’t think that there are words left
to describe what’s happening to the Palestinian people.”
The war began on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants stormed into
Israel and killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251
people captive. Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed over 60,000
Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not
differentiate between combatants and civilians but says more than
half the dead are women and children.
Nearly 21 months into the conflict that displaced the vast majority
of Gaza’s 2.3 million people, the United Nations says hunger is
rampant after a lengthy Israeli blockade on food entering the
territory and medical care is extremely limited.
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