A UN expert who determined that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza on Wednesday said that she had faced threats over her work but insisted it only made her more determined to push ahead.

Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the rights situation in the Palestinian territories, said this week there were reasonable grounds to believe Israel was committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

Asked about the blowback at a news conference in Geneva, Albanese acknowledged that "it has been a difficult time".

The independent expert who was appointed by the UN Human Rights Council in 2022 said she had "been attacked since the very beginning of my mandate".

"I do receive threats," she acknowledged, but said that she had received "nothing that so far I have considered needing extra precautions".

And the pressure merely encourages her "not to step back", Albanese said.

Albanese also addressed allegations that Hamas fighters used rape during their attack on Israel on 7 October, saying there was an absence of convincing evidence to support the claims.

"What I am very disturbed by was the weaponisation of anything that happened on 7 of October," she said. "Personally, I have not received information. I have read reports that had been written, and I didn't find any convincing evidence."

Key findings

Albanese said one of her key findings was that Israel’s executive and military leadership and soldiers have intentionally "subverted their protection functions in an attempt to legitimise genocidal violence against the Palestinian people".

"The only reasonable inference that can be drawn from the unveiling of this policy is an Israeli state policy of genocidal violence toward the Palestinian people in Gaza,” she said, adding that it was a “long-standing settler-colonial process of erasure".

She called for the ongoing Nakba to stop, referring to the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948.

Israeli visa ban

Israel last month announced a visa ban on Albanese over comments denying that Hamas's October 7 attack was "anti-Semitic".

Albanese on Wednesday reiterated that she had found no evidence that the October 7 attacks were "propelled by anti-Semitism", adding that she wants Israel to behave "in accordance with international law".

The expert, who has argued the attack was motivated by Israeli oppression acknowledged that her comments were not "strategic" but said that she stood by her report.

Albanese said that when she eventually does leave her post, it will not be because of her critics.

"It won't be because they vilify or they mistreat me in the public discourse."

'Nothing justifies what Israel is doing'

Albanese said that she "of course" condemned Hamas and its brutal attack on Israel, but added: "Nothing justifies what Israel is doing".

Israel's military campaign has killed at least 32,400 people in Gaza, most of them women and children, and has spurred a humanitarian catastrophe and UN warnings of a looming famine.

Albanese has called for an "international protective presence" in Gaza and has also demanded that other countries impose sanctions and an arms embargo to stem the violence.

Countries, she stressed, have obligations under the UN Genocide Convention to act "immediately" when a risk of genocide is detected.

Albanese said she next intended to investigate the possible "complicity" of the United States, Israel's main backer, and also other countries.

"The genocide has already been committed," she said, but added that "we can still save lives and we can still halt the descent into the abyss."