You took up the role of UN Special Rapporteur in 2022. Since then, you have released two major reports—one in 2023 and another in 2024—and you have been instrumental in exposing the genocide. You were among the first to assert that what is happening in Gaza fits the legal description of genocide. Three years on, how would you assess the situation?

Yes, absolutely. For the benefit of those who may not know me: as a legal expert and scholar appointed by the UN, I document and report violations of international law committed by Israel in the occupied Palestinian territory—work I do pro bono alongside my other professional obligations. I have devoted considerable time and made great personal sacrifices to this mandate because of what I have witnessed in Palestine.

Palestine represents a reality of brutality and injustice that, once seen, cannot be unseen. If there is one thing I can say about myself, it is that I have integrity. I have paid a heavy price and been accused of terrible things simply for doing my job, which included investigating Israel’s conduct as part of my reporting cycle covering what Israel has done in Gaza and the rest of the occupied Palestinian territory from October 2023 onwards.

I condemned the attacks against Israeli civilians—the killing, maiming, and kidnapping of civilians on October 7. But nothing that happened on October 7 justifies what Israel has done since: the killing, the maiming, the starvation, the wholesale destruction, and the torture inflicted upon Palestinians as a people from October 2023. This is why it weighed heavily on me, especially as a European, to use the term genocide in relation to Israel. But this is where integrity matters.

What I have documented are acts of killing, the infliction of severe bodily and mental harm, and the creation of conditions of life calculated to destroy Palestinians as a group, with the intention to destroy them. This is what Israel has done, and this is what I have documented. In response, member states have invested far more energy in trying to destroy me and people like me—ordinary citizens, journalists, fellow rapporteurs, human rights organisations from both Israel and Palestine, and international bodies—rather than engaging with the substance of our reports.

How would you assess the current situation on the ground? There is supposed to be a ceasefire, but reports indicate that Israel is still killing people in Gaza. There also appears to be renewed expansion activity in the West Bank. Could you update us on the situation?

The world today is divided into two: those who believe Israel’s lies and those who do not. Some do not care, but let us set them aside. Since March 2024, when I presented the first of five reports produced during the genocide, I have described Israel’s use of what I call “humanitarian camouflage”—the deployment of humanitarian language to conceal crimes. Terms such as “collateral damage”, “safe zones”, “evacuation orders”, and “humanitarian assistance” have all been systematically misused. International humanitarian law, which imposes limits on the conduct of war—because even wars have rules, whatever Israel does or believes—has been turned on its head.

The principles of distinction between civilians and combatants, proportionality of military action, military necessity, and precautions during military operations have all been exploded to justify killing and destroying everything in sight. The word “ceasefire” follows the same logic. It was introduced to quell the global popular protests against Israel and its allies—governments like yours and mine. Italy and India are among the most steadfast defenders of Israel at this tragic moment in history. In practice, “ceasefire” has meant: Israel fires, while the rest of the world ceases to pay attention. Seven hundred and fifty Palestinians have been killed since the so-called ceasefire began. Some cynics say, “Only 750—normally it might have been 7,500.” I find that deeply cynical.

Palestinians can keep dying because, had 750 Europeans or 750 wealthy people been killed, our reaction would be entirely different. I often use the example of the Titan submersible. You will recall that in 2023, it went missing. During the days the world’s attention was fixed on the Titan, Israeli settlers and soldiers were carrying out pogroms against Palestinians. Between May 2022 and September 2023, approximately 460 Palestinians were killed, with almost no public attention. That contrast reveals everything about whose lives are considered grievable and whose are considered expendable.

Could you walk us through your process of documenting these atrocities? Do you speak directly with those affected, or do you rely on news reports? What does your methodology look like?

News reports serve as an initial alert, and journalists do extraordinary work—which is precisely why Israel has killed nearly 300 journalists in Gaza alone. My primary sources, however, are lawyers and human rights organisations who bring cases to my attention. I am also alerted through social media by Palestinian victims, survivors, and Israelis. For example, just yesterday I participated in an incredibly painful webinar with Israeli parliamentarians and civil society actors who wanted to go on record about how grave the situation is in their own country.

I rely on people on the ground because Israel, despite its illegal occupation, prevents me from entering the occupied Palestinian territory—an abusive and unlawful restriction. I gather information from humanitarian workers on the ground, doctors, medical personnel, and some former Israeli soldiers, and I corroborate it as thoroughly as possible. Before finalising any report, I always share my findings with Israeli authorities.

For the most recent report, which examined the use of torture, I collected submissions, interviewed approximately 15 torture survivors, and reviewed 300 testimonies gathered by Israeli and human rights lawyers and civil society organisations. I shared the compiled report with the Israeli authorities, and they did not correct a single factual claim. Of course, outside that formal channel, they continue to smear me.

Displaced Palestinians make their way after fleeing the northern part of Gaza amid an Israeli military operation, in Gaza City, November 12, 2024. | Photo Credit: Dawoud Abu Alkas/REUTERS

Israel has also been remarkably successful in conflating antisemitism with anti-Zionism, such that any criticism of Israel is labelled antisemitic. The PR machinery—organisations like the ADL [Anti-Defamation League]—will come after you with that label. This is especially visible in Germany and the United States. But when you interact with people in public, do you see attitudes shifting?

This is a moment of intense polarisation in which ideological thinking has overwhelmed reason, empathy, and compassion. It is brutal. In Italy, for instance, certain Jewish community organisations are weaponising the legitimate fight against antisemitism to lobby for the restriction of freedom of expression when it comes to Israel. In France, Italy, Australia—in the so-called liberal democracies—ideologically motivated campaigns are working to suppress a fundamental freedom in the name of defending a state that stands accused before the ICJ of committing genocide, and whose Prime Minister and former Defence Minister are wanted by the ICC for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The facts are unambiguous. Those who attend my lectures and engage with my work are people who see what I see. They are distraught and despondent at how those in power deny what is plainly visible before us—leaders who have the capacity to stop this genocide yet choose instead, like my government and yours, to continue trading with and covering for Israel.

This is precisely why I say we must work more smartly and with greater determination to stop this lawlessness, because lawlessness is contagious. It is instructive to consider Italy and India together. Italy, despite its colonial past—which it has not adequately reckoned with—is not one of the traditional colonial powers in the way the UK, France, or Spain were. And Italy liberated itself from Nazi-fascism; one would expect a heightened sensitivity to questions of self-determination, as it was in the past.

The Italy I grew up in had that. India, meanwhile, was one of the principal architects of international law during the decolonisation period and played a critical role in making decolonisation possible. India is now betraying those values by supporting Israel. The Indian people may feel that Palestine is distant, but what India receives from Israel—military training, surveillance technology, and tools of subjugation—are instruments that can be, and are being, turned inward to become more repressive at home, potentially affecting minorities and communities already considered expendable. This is fundamentally a struggle for our common humanity. We are still dividing ourselves into those who count and those who do not. That is what I encounter when I speak about Palestine: an awareness of this decay, and a will to resist it.

How do you see the Israel-India alliance? India was historically a vocal supporter of Palestinian interests, but the current BJP government has fundamentally reversed that position and is now a strong ally of Israel. There was a brief moment, when South Africa brought the ICJ case, when it seemed the Global South might hold Israel accountable. But India now appears to be firmly in Israel’s corner. How do you read that?

Let me first defend what is called the “Global South”—a term I prefer to replace with “global majority”. The fault line today is no longer West versus the rest. India is a case in point. The real division is between those at the top—the plutocrats, the anarcho-capitalists who control military resources, financial systems, and the flow of information across both social and traditional media— and everyone else. That power was historically concentrated in the West. I remind my European colleagues that Europe forged itself as a colonial power that ruled over the rest of the world for five centuries, doing so by first eroding and erasing internal minorities, women’s power, and alternative knowledge systems within Europe itself.

The hegemonic power of the church and the empire eventually transformed into what we today call white supremacism. We Europeans were, in a sense, the first indigenous peoples to be subjugated within our own continent, and the disconnection between us and spirituality comes from death, a moment of rupture. Now that same logic is being extended to you and to the rest of the world. As colonialism in its most brutal territorial form was dismantled, control over natural resources did not disappear—it was transferred to corporations.

Those corporations now shape the choices of democratically elected leaders. This is why, in Europe, protests have been crushed: Germany is arresting peaceful demonstrators; the UK is charging journalists and civil society actors under terrorism statutes; Italy, France, and Australia are passing laws on antisemitism that, in practice, protect not Jewish people, but the interests of those in power. Is the alliance between Israel and Modi’s India surprising?

No. We—the people—have delegated authority to the wrong people. That is why I am so glad to see younger generations in Italy taking matters into their own hands, relentlessly. Workers are striking, and pressure on the government is mounting. In fact, just yesterday something historic occurred: the Italian government, which may face electoral consequences over Palestine—because Palestine has been an awakening—was compelled to announce a suspension of its defence agreement with Israel. Ministers are facing legal proceedings for complicity with genocide and the prospect of electoral defeat.

They have tried to respond by becoming more authoritarian, to frighten people into silence. India may be at a more advanced stage of that suppression. But we must remember: we are many. We are far more numerous than those in power. We are simply not yet united or coordinated. People of conscience who care about human rights must unite and remind those in power that they are not kings or queens; they are our representatives, our civil servants. Palestine is a call to action that transcends polarisation.

You understand why Israel, the United States, the Italian government, and likely the Indian government resent me: I make sense to ordinary people. I explain that what Israel is doing is wrong under international law, and that corporations are profiting from it—corporations that matter more to governments than the citizens they represent. Even if the majority of Indian people oppose the genocide and feel compassion for Palestinians, their voice is eclipsed because their government is in lockstep with the perpetrators.

A Palestinian flag flies as the ruins of houses, which were destroyed by Israeli air strikes during the Israeli-Palestinian fighting, are seen, in Gaza Strip, May 25, 2021. | Photo Credit: Mohammed Salem/REUTERS

It seems fair to say that the Global South has historically been cautious in its expectations of the UN, but you have helped shift that perception. What do you see as the UN’s role now, given the current state of global disorder? Is there a path to restoring its credibility?

Blaming the UN is like blaming international law. International law is not a self-aware agent; it is a tool. And the rights we have today exist because people—Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Antonio Gramsci, Che Guevara, and countless indigenous peoples and activists around the world—fought for them. Were it not for people of conscience, we would still have slavery, people of colour kept in zoos in Europe, legal segregation, and the caste system entrenched in the law. People fought, and continue to fight, for the equal dignity and value of all human beings.

That is what the UN Charter represents. But of course, we do not change overnight. Studies suggest that genuine cultural transformation takes a generation. After the Second World War, even those in power understood that something had gone catastrophically wrong, and they agreed to enter into binding treaties. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was signed. But greed does not end with a few powerful individuals; we also need to interrogate the very idea of power itself—power as it has been constructed, which is testosteronic in character and oriented toward seizing, holding, and conquering, rather than sharing and generating. We need a different conception of power: one that creates rather than destroys.

This may sound anti-capitalist. I am not a communist. I believe in the value of the individual and of the collective, in the self-determination of peoples, and in states that exist to protect people. If they do not, something has gone wrong. I believe in multilateralism and in the UN, if it genuinely serves the people. Where it does not, reform is needed—but not cosmetic reform. The transformation required must begin from the ground up, from the very people who are the sovereign decision-makers and who delegate authority upward. Until people transform politics in their own countries, the United Nations will not change, and international law will remain the remnant of a possible world that could have been.

I am not pessimistic. I believe we are living through a moment of historical acceleration in which a revolution is happening, even if we don’t realise it. The rise of a global conscience against this genocide tells me we are on the right side of history. There is much to do, but I hope to see a more equal world—one with fewer billionaires and no one starving at the expense of someone’s greed.

Have you faced any resistance from within the UN itself for your outspoken stance and your reports?

Not much active resistance, to be honest. What I encounter is a lack of support. But consider the context: the week I present a report, I am sanctioned by the United States as a supposed threat to the global system, including the technology industry; and the very next week, the Secretary-General is celebrating with Big Tech in Geneva. I do not blame the entire institution, but that tension is real and needs to be addressed.

So there is a discordance between stated values and actual conduct within the organisation. This has become an intensely personal battle for you—you are hounded by the Israeli lobby, sanctioned by the US government, and repeatedly labelled an antisemite for criticising Israel. Do you ever weigh the personal cost, and do you believe it is worth it?

I am making a significant sacrifice, and so is my family. I have two young children whom I see far too little. I am choosing this because I believe the children of Palestinians, Israelis, Indians, Congolese, and Sudanese are as deserving of the quiet, safe home I once had as I am. Because those people do not have that safety, certainly not those in occupied Palestine. I have this UN mandate; it is a mission. I document Israel’s violations in the occupied Palestinian territory.

This is not about religion. I have never said anything against the Jewish people. I am acutely aware that antisemitism exists, and that it belongs to the same category as anti-Palestinianism, because if you are a racist, you are a racist regardless of your target. The religion Israel professes is irrelevant to my work. It could be Buddhist, Hindu, Christian, or Muslim—it does not matter. Israel must comply with the rules of the international community as stipulated in the treaties it has signed and in the UN Charter. It does not. The ICJ has ordered Israel to dismantle the occupation totally and unconditionally.

Meanwhile, member states—including India—are obligated not to trade with or provide assistance to a state committing international crimes. The problem lies with states like yours and with Europe, which continues to trade with Israel and thereby contributes to an atmosphere of lawlessness and impunity. As for whether it is worth it: I am not sure. But it is about freedom. Sometimes, when I meditate, the image that comes to me is of carrying something on my chest—something that has nothing to do with me personally, but something that, if I set it down, I may never recover. That thing is freedom. The belief that freedom is worth living for, and fighting for.

I read recently about your family taking legal action against the US government, which sanctioned you, even though your children hold American citizenship. Can you tell us about the progress of that lawsuit?

It has been an extraordinarily painful process. No one wanted to challenge President Trump and his administration. We could not find, even in the United States, a pro bono organisation willing to defend me. The response was: “The United Nations can defend you.” And the UN’s response was: “We are defending you—we are asking the US to lift the sanctions.” Thank you, but that is insufficient. I want people to understand what being sanctioned by the United States actually means. It is civil death. Even outside the US, it means financial exile. I cannot hold a bank account. I cannot make bank transfers. My email address was shut down.

My ties with the universities I had collaborated with—Georgetown and Columbia—were severed. I am treated by the United States as an international drug trafficker, punished without due process, without any opportunity to defend myself. There are fines of up to one million dollars for anyone who provides goods or services to me. My husband works for a US-based organisation. My daughter was born in the US and holds American citizenship. All of us have been affected. We face potential imprisonment of up to 20 years. And my own country has not defended me.

The European Union has not defended me beyond statements of solidarity. So my 13-year-old daughter decided to take the US President, the Secretary of State, and the Attorney General to court. People asked me why I would trust a system in which many judges are Trump appointees.

I told them that I trust the system. My daughter said, ‘Mom, don’t worry, I’ll take care of it.’ It is heavy and expensive, but we had no other choice. I trust the justice system because this is such a blatant violation of free speech—a foundational pillar of US law—and because it is visibly harming my daughter’s psychological well-being and her financial assets, which have been frozen in the US. If we were to lose, the battle escalates. What else can I do? I did not expect to find myself in this ordeal. But if you ask whether I would do it all again, absolutely, yes.

Let us talk about accountability for Israel. Its support base seems to be under pressure in parts of Europe. You recently commented on a tweet by German Chancellor Merz, and there is also Meloni’s decision to suspend the defence agreement with Israel. Do you think the solidarity for Israel is cracking in the West?

It is not cracking. It is being cracked open by force. There is an “Israelization” of societies taking place, and yours, like mine, is not immune. Israel has become a model of democracy for certain governments: yes, you can vote, but you can be repressed for doing anything those in power disapprove of. Forget freedom of expression. Forget freedom of association. Forget standing against international crimes. People today are being arrested, fined, and fired for opposing genocide. In the UK, ordinary citizens are being charged as terrorists for standing against genocide. In France, Italy, and Australia, parliaments are passing laws that criminalise or penalise criticism of the state of Israel. So, it is not solidarity that is cracking—-it is solidarity that has become such a threat that it is being strangled. That is what is happening.

Is it naive to assume that Israel will be held accountable for the atrocities it is committing?

Others in other brutal regimes may have thought accountability was impossible, and they were proven wrong. It really depends on what we do. It is not over yet.

Can you tell us what the most horrifying account you have heard from survivors or colleagues regarding Israel’s genocide of Palestinians?

Torture. Torture. The images I carry: young people—people who could be my own children—inserting metal rods into a detainee’s body; forcing the face of a defenseless human being into a toilet; people beaten and sexually assaulted by a dog; a woman my age, or slightly younger, tied to a metal bed and filmed while being raped by two soldiers; doctors having their hands broken so they cannot operate; journalists beaten and sodomised for doing their jobs.

Torture is the hallmark of this genocide. Most people know nothing about this, or choose not to. But what Israel has done in Gaza, under our watch, mirrors what it has done to the body and mind of every Palestinian who has been taken by its soldiers. There is not a single person I can point to who has not been, in some form, physically or psychologically tortured by Israel over these three years.

Even those in the diaspora, who have had family members living for nearly three years under bombardment, in tents, now being starved without shelter, exposed to disease and to the rats eating at their bodies—would you not feel shattered by that? Medical evacuations do not happen, and people die. Aid does not enter. And then there is the so-called “Board of Peace,” which is one of the monstrosities of this era—one of many that confuses us. Hannah Arendt warned us: totalitarianism arises when the line between truth and falsehood collapses.

Today, the goal is not even to convince people that lies are true; it is to convince people that truth itself is unknowable— that they cannot trust anyone. My child told me, ‘Mom, I looked you up on AI devices. Most of them say you’re biased. Some say you’re evil.’ I said, ‘Well, you shouldn’t believe that. I’m your mother—you know who I am.’ And they said, ‘Yes, but I also checked, and some of those same tools say Donald Trump is good.’ The algorithms are being trained to construct a reality that has no connection to reality. And that is where we are.

US President Donald Trump points his finger towards Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as they shake hands during a press conference after meeting at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida on December 29, 2025. | Photo Credit: Jonathan Ernst/REUTERS

You often describe Palestine as a wound on humanity. Your book carries that spirit in its title. Can you tell us a little about it?

The image of Palestine as a wound belongs to Arundhati Roy, whom I quote because she has been such a profound source of illumination for me. Re-reading her work this year—a book I first read at 22—allowed me to see clearly the kind of wound that Palestine is. Palestine is, in fact, a wound on the world today. Not because Sudan, Congo, or other conflicts are less significant—they are not— but Palestine strikes with particular force because we can see the complicity so plainly: dozens of countries actively arming the force that is annihilating the Palestinians, and continuing to profit from it.

I say Palestine is a revealer. It holds a mirror up to us—to us as individuals, as societies, as institutions—and shows us who we are. I am not interested in being celebrated as a hero. I simply do not want to be alone in speaking truth to power. I hope the rest of the UN will do the same. The occupation is unlawful. That should be in the Secretary-General’s statement every single time he addresses Israel. Israel is an unlawful occupying power that must end its occupation totally and unconditionally.

Can you tell us more about your book that has recently been published?

When the World Sleeps was written in Italian and published in May 2025. It became a bestseller in Italy—something neither the publisher nor I anticipated. One reviewer described it as: a book about history that is not a history book; about international law that is not a legal handbook; about people’s lives that is not a biography; and about the author’s life that is not an autobiography. It is deeply personal, but filtered through the lens of a legal expert who has studied and lived under occupation.

The book has ten chapters, each centred on a person whose story illuminates a different dimension of the occupation, apartheid, genocide, antisemitism, or hope. People have responded to it warmly. It has been translated into 18 languages, and the English edition—strangely one of the last to appear—is being published on 26 April. I have also written a second book, La Luce del Risveglio (The Light of Awakening), which will be published in Italian in the coming months.

Have you met Arundhati Roy?

Not yet. I wish I had.

Given how heavy your reading and work are, how do you take care of your mental health?

Meditation when I can, yoga, and love—genuinely. The love of the people around me, and the knowledge that I am doing the right thing, are deeply empowering. Standing against injustice gives you an inner sustenance that keeps on giving. You know you are doing the right thing. You are in balance with yourself. All the rest—yes, they can freeze my assets; that is genuinely difficult, but it is not the end of the world. There is so much love around me. People have sent dinner through friends with a note saying, “Don’t cook tonight—there is a surprise.”

I have been in restaurants where, when I asked for the bill, the waiter told me it had been paid by someone who wished to remain anonymous. The generosity is extraordinary. People feel that giving something to me is the least they can do. I tell them: don’t worry about me. I have my family, I still have the possibility of exercising my freedom, and I have a UN mandate. Of course, I am a target. But who isn’t? Millions do not have this privilege. I am using mine, and those with privilege should do the same—for all of us.

Francesca Albanese, you are such an inspiration. May your light continue to shine. Before I let you go, one final question: do you think human rights are better understood now than they were before?

Yes, without question. They are understood. The new generation understands—including in the West, despite everything. This is a moment of reckoning with our past, a return to our roots. In many ways, it is a profound healing moment. Let me share an image I wrote about, because I find it powerful: it is as though humanity is giving birth to something new.

Arundhati Roy once said, ‘A new world is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.’ That says it all. There is a feminine energy in this moment that is reclaiming the testosterone grip on power. There is a growing reconnection with the Earth, and a hunger for spirituality—even in the West, where we sometimes exhaust that hunger on bottles of essential oil or yoga mats. But inside every human being is an extraordinary call toward the spiritual, toward something deeper. And something is making all of us more aware. Humanity is passing through a birth—and like any birth, it is intensely painful. But we need to keep breathing through the pain and keep pushing. That is what we must do: create the world we want and deserve.