UN investigator says US sanctions over her criticism of Israel will seriously impact her life

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.

“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.