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Israeli envoy Danny Danon accused U.N. Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese of “witchcraft” during a General Assembly session on Tuesday, following her report that described the Gaza war as a “live-streamed genocide” and accused world powers of complicity.
Albanese on the occupied Palestinian territories, outlined measures that she said states must take to end the Israeli occupation during a briefing to the General Assembly’s Third Committee in New York.
She said, “States must ensure a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, a complete Israeli withdrawal from every inch of the occupied Palestinian territories, and the dismantling of settlements.”
Albanese called for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, a complete Israeli withdrawal from every inch of occupied Palestinian land, and the dismantling of settlements.
She urged all countries to suspend military, trade and diplomatic relations with Israel until what she described as “genocide, unlawful occupation and apartheid” come to an end.
In her report, Albanese details dozens of other states that continue to trade in weapons and surveillance technology field-tested on Palestinians.
It also described the events in Gaza as the first live-streamed settler-colonial genocide.
“Only justice can heal the wounds that political expedience has allowed to fester,” the report stressed.
She further called for “investigations into all who served in the Israeli army during this genocide, and prosecutions where necessary.”
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry welcomed the report—titled “Gaza Genocide: A Collective Crime”—describing it as exposing “international complicity” in Israel’s legally documented crimes.
Albanese expressed regret that she was unable to deliver her report in person due to U.S. sanctions preventing her entry into the country.
She denounced those measures as “illegal and arbitrary,” saying they represented “an assault on the U.N.’s independence, integrity, and very essence.”
Speaking from South Africa, she emphasized the symbolic significance of the location, recalling that “freedom is indivisible—the chains imposed on one are chains on all.”
The report also addressed the situation in the West Bank, where Albanese noted what she called an “escalation of colonial settlement expansion.”
She described an ongoing pattern of Israeli military raids, mass arrests and killings, combined with violent settler attacks that include burning Palestinian villages, uprooting trees and seizing more land.
She said such atrocities were “not anomalies, but the culmination of decades of moral and political failure sustained by a global system of complicity.”
Albanese identified four areas that, in her view, have enabled Israel’s continued violations: diplomacy, which “dehumanized Palestinians and legitimized Israel’s false self-defense claims”; military relations, which supplied weapons and intelligence; trade, which directly funded Israel’s war economy; and the use of humanitarian aid “as a weapon.”
She said this included attacks on UNRWA and what she described as “massacres of starving civilians under the guise of aid distribution.”
During the session, Israel’s U.N. ambassador, Danny Danon, launched personal attacks on Albanese, accusing her of “witchcraft.”
The committee chair later admonished the Israeli envoy, urging professionalism and restraint.
Albanese responded that such accusations were “absurd.”
“It is bizarre and frankly insane that a state committing genocide cannot address the substance of my findings and resorts instead to calling me a witch,” she added.
“If the worst accusation you can make against me is witchcraft, I’ll take it,” she said.
Albanese added that if she truly had such powers, she would use them not for revenge, but to stop the Israeli crimes once and for all and ensure accountability.
Albanese concluded her remarks with a direct appeal for international accountability and an end to all support that, she warned, continues to sustain what she described as an ongoing “project of extermination” against the Palestinian people.
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