UN Should Be Praising, Not Condemning, Israel For Evacuations In Gaza

Francesca Albanese, the Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, has just delivered a report to the UN Human Rights Council, which accuses Israel of “genocide”: “UN report claims Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, call for arms embargo,” by Leon Kraiem, Jerusalem Post, March 25, 2024:

The report addresses Israel’s evacuation notices and the creation of safe zones and humanitarian corridors in Gaza, alleging that “the sheer scale of evacuations amidst an intense bombing campaign, and the haphazardly communicated safe zones system, along with extended communications blackouts, increased levels of panic, forced displacement and mass killings.”…

Instead of praising the IDF for its massive effort at warning Gazan civilians away from areas it was about to target, Albanese claims that that effort “increased levels of panic,” and caused “forced displacement.” Nonsense. In just the first month of hostilities, the Israelis dropped fourteen million leaflets, sent six million messages, and made four million telephone calls, all to warn — not panic — civilians of impending attacks, and instructing them where they could go to that would be safe. This effort was designed to minimize panic, to get the Gazans, now forewarned, to leave in an orderly and calm fashion. The only panic was that sown not by the IDF but by Hamas, that threatened Gazans who wanted to move from Gaza City to south of the Wadi Gaza, as the IDF had suggested. Hamas did not merely urge Gazans to stay put, but killed some of those civilians making their way south on Salah al-Din Street, so a to discourage such evacuation. Hamas wanted Gazans to remain in order that more of them might be killed by Israeli bombs, thus giving Hamas a propaganda bonanza. Only Israel cares about the wellbeing of Gazan civilians.

Albanese wants the world to believe that all those warnings by leafletting, messaging, and telephoning were nothing but a diabolic trick, to lure the Gazans into areas where the IDF could then target them. But there is no evidence for this. The 900,000 Gazans who left northern Gaza and went south of the Wadi Gaza, as instructed by the IDF, were safe. They remained safe until the IDF, turning its attention to Khan Younis and central Gaza,, warned them that the formerly safe area was about to be struck, so – the IDF counseled them — they ought to move further south, to Rafah. That is exactly what they did. “Safe areas” did indeed become “unsafe” as the IDF targets changed, but in every case the IDF warned Gazans to move, and then move again, in order to stay safe. Albanese pretends not to understand this, nor does she mention the extent of the IDF’s warnings, that were given well in advance of attacks. The very means the IDF used to save civilian lives, providing “evacuations and safe zones,” are described by Albanese, turning the truth inside out, as “genocidal tools.” How can warning civilians away from places soon to be attacked be so described? Albanese’s longstanding antipathy towards Israel has reached new depths.

The report does not discuss Oct 7 attack, but condemns “crimes” by Hamas….

That’s it — only a single sentence in Albanese’s report is devoted to the atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7, that caused the war that Israel did not want. She doesn’t give any details, because they are too horrific, and might create sympathy for the people of Israel. Instead, she refers vaguely to “crimes” by Hamas, hiding the full horror of what happened to 1,200 Israelis who were raped, tortured, and murdered by gleeful sadists on that day.

The war has resulted in the deaths of some 32,414 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza. Those numbers cannot be independently verified, and they do not distinguish between civilians and combatants. Israel says it has killed some 12,000 Hamas and allied terrorists, suggesting a civilian-to-combatant ratio of about 2:1, on the low end of the expected range for urban warfare….

In fact, Israel said in late January that it had killed 13,000 Hamas and PIJ terrorists, making that ratio much closer to 1:1; see below for more.

We have no way to verify the numbers that Hamas puts out, of Gazans killed. We do know that Hamas routinely exaggerates the number of civilians killed by the IDF. Think only of its claims that “500 civilians” died in what Hamas called the “massacre in Jenin.” Investigation showed that not 500, but 52 Palestinians had been killed, and at least 45 of them were members of Hamas. Then there was the claim that “Israeli airstrike on Al-Ahli Hospital that killed 471 civilians.” It turned out there had been no Israeli airstrike on the hospital, but a rocket launched by Palestinian Islamic Jihad that misfired, landing not on the hospital itself, but on a parking lot next to the hospital, and the number of those killed was not 471, but “between 10 and 50” according to both Israeli and American intelligence. So we should be most skeptical of Hamas’ latest figures, that Albanese so credulously — and malevolently — accepts.

In fact, the latest figures on Hamas casualties tell a different story. As of January 25, the IDF said it had killed 13,000 Hamas members. Assuming the same rate of casualties as occurred in the period October 7-January 24, in the two months since then, there must have been at least another 2,000 Hamas operatives killed, so that by March 26, when Albanese delivered her report, a total of about 15,000 members of Hamas have been killed. Now even if we were to accept Hamas’ report that about 32,000 Gazans have been killed to date, that would give us 17,000 civilian deaths and 15,000 Hamas deaths, a ratio of civilian-to-combatant deaths of 17:15, which is almost 1:1, and not 2:1 as the article suggests.

The sadistic atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7, which caused the current war in Gaza , are alluded to merely as “crimes” and not treated, she says, because they are “beyond the geographic scope of her mandate.” So apparently her mandate — which is supposed to cover the “occupied Palestinian territories,” stops, most conveniently, at the border of Gaza with Israel. That way she doesn’t have to deal with the Hamas attack, which would garner sympathy for Israel. But in the past, Albanese has reported on the treatment of “Palestinians” inside Israel; now, suddenly, she claims that for her to comment on the Hamas atrocities at the Nova dance party and the kibbutzim would be ultra vires, beyond the scope of her authority.  What she means is: I don’t want to discuss Hamas’ atrocities. I only care about the “atrocities” committed by the settler-colonial state of Israel, which now include — please see my latest report — the crime of “genocide.”

Albanese will hold that office of Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories for another year. She’s done more harm to Israel, and to the truth, than any other UN employee in recent history. Her removal can’t come fast enough.