UN human rights chief calls on US to drop sanctions against Albanese

Volker Turk has urged the US to swiftly reverse its sanctions on UN special rapporteur Francesca Albanese over her work documenting Israel’s abuses against Palestinians.

In a statement, the UN’s high commissioner for human rights said special rapporteurs were obliged to tackle “sensitive and often divisive issues that are of international concern”.

He added that even when they fiercely disagreed with the work of special rapporteurs such as Albanese, UN member states “should engage substantively and constructively, rather than resort to punitive measures”.

A number of rights organisations and advocates have issued statements in support of Albanese after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the sanctions yesterday, in which he accused Albanese of waging a “campaign of political and economic warfare” against his country and its ally, Israel.

“Attacks and threats against Special Procedures mandate holders, as well as key institutions like the International Criminal Court, must stop,” Turk said. “The solution is not less, but more, debate and dialogue on the very real human rights concerns they address.”

Human Rights Watch says sanctions against Albanese about ‘silencing’ criticism of Israel

The international rights watchdog has said that the US sanctions on the UN’s Francesca Albanese represent an attack on international law and those who speak out about Israeli abuses in the occupied Palestinian territories.

“The US government’s decision to sanction Albanese for seeking justice through the International Criminal Court is actually all about silencing a UN expert for doing her job, speaking truth about Israeli violations against Palestinians and calling on governments and corporations not to be complicit,” Liz Evenson, international justice director at HRW, said in a statement.

“The United States is working to dismantle the norms and institutions on which survivors of grave abuses rely. UN and ICC member countries should strongly resist the US government’s shameless efforts to block justice for the world’s worst crimes and condemn the outrageous sanctions on Albanese.”

Sanctions against Albanese set ‘dangerous precedent’: UN chief’s spokesman

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’s spokesman has commented on the US decision to impose sanctions against Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory.

“The imposition of sanctions on special rapporteurs is a dangerous precedent,” Stephane Dujarric told reporters at UN headquarters in New York.

Noting that Albanese reports to the UN Human Rights Council and not to the secretary-general, Dujarric said UN member states may disagree with reports by special rapporteurs.

“But we encourage them to engage with the UN’s human rights architecture. The use of unilateral sanctions against special rapporteurs or any other UN expert or official is unacceptable,” he said.

Albanese says sanctions were retribution for her naming of US companies

The UN’s special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian Territories has denounced the sanctions issued against her by the administration of US President Donald Trump, saying the US tech giants named in her recent report had “gone whining” to the government.

“They’ve never challenged me on the facts. I’ve given these companies the opportunity to correct me. Instead, they’ve gone whining to the US administration to treat me as they are,” she told reporters Thursday morning during a visit to Ljubljana, Slovenia. “This speaks to who they are, and I will continue to do what I have to do.”

Earlier this month, Albanese released a report naming scores of corporations aiding Israel in the displacement of Palestinians and its genocidal war on Gaza, in breach of international law. The report names 48 corporate actors, including Amazon, Microsoft, and Alphabet, Inc. – Google’s parent company.

“I am the first UN person to be imposed a sanction for what? For having exposed the genocide? For having denounced the system?” she asked.

‘Nothing humanitarian or humane’ about Israel’s ‘concentration camp’ plan for Gaza

Tamara Alrifai, a senior communications director at the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), explained to Al Jazeera what is wrong with the so-called “humanitarian city” plan in Gaza that is being pursued by Israel.

“Calling it a humanitarian city is an insult to the humanitarian principles,” Tamara Alrifai said.

UNRWA said “this plan would de-facto create massive concentration camps at the border with Egypt for the Palestinians”.

“We cannot be silent and complicit of such large-scale forced displacement,” it added.

“There is nothing humanitarian or humane” about the so-called humanitarian city Israeli officials are talking about, tells our UNRWA Director of External Relations and Communications @TamaraAlrifai to @AJEnglish

This plan would de-facto create massive concentration camps at the… pic.twitter.com/ZjuhC17pZn

— UNRWA (@UNRWA) July 10, 2025

Ben-Gvir renews calls for expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza

Itamar Ben-Gvir, the far-right Israeli security minister, has released a statement that appears to draw a line between the recent stabbing attacks we have been covering in the occupied West Bank and what he considers excessive concessions by the Israeli government in Gaza.

“When you negotiate with a terrorist organisation about the release of terrorists, and at the same time you breathe life into Hamas with ‘humanitarian’ aid, then unfortunately we see the results,” he said.

“And we saw it today in Gush Etzion, we saw it in the attempted kidnapping of soldiers, we saw it in the increase in terrorism. And I turned to the prime minister, and I tell him one thing: ‘Prime minister – it is forbidden to negotiate with them, the way is to crush, occupy and encourage voluntary immigration. Only in this way will we defeat terrorism!'”

While Ben-Gvir refers to “voluntary” emigration out of Gaza, experts in international law have said that pushing Palestinians to leave the enclave after creating unbearable conditions there would be tantamount to ethnic cleansing.

‘No other way to describe it but establishment of concentration camp’

Israeli journalist Gideon Levy says there is little opposition in Israel to the country’s latest forced displacement plan in Gaza, which top United Nations officials say will create a concentration camp for Palestinians in the south of the enclave.

“There’s no other way to describe it but an establishment of a concentration camp under the Jewish state, which was established out of the ashes of the Holocaust,” Levy, a columnist at Israeli newspaper Haaretz, told Al Jazeera.

He explained that there has been – and continues to be – very little pushback in Israel against the government’s policies in Gaza.

“For most of the Israelis, the only people who live right now in Gaza are the [Israeli] hostages. All the rest don’t interest them and don’t exist, and therefore there are no guilty feelings and no discussions and no shame,” Levy said.

He added that the United States – Israel’s top global ally – will support the Israeli government’s plan, which is based on US President Donald Trump’s own push to force Palestinians out of Gaza. “The first idea of transferring all the people from Gaza was [Trump’s],” Levy said. “He legitimised it with all those stupid talking [points] about ‘the Riviera of Gaza’.”

Gaza death toll rises

At least 82 Palestinians have been killed and 247 injured in Israeli attacks across the Gaza Strip in the past 24 hours, according to the enclave’s Health Ministry.

The toll included nine aid seekers killed and more than 78 others injured, raising the total number of people killed at aid sites since May 27, when the GHF started operations, to 782. More than 5,179 other starving Palestinians were also injured in total at those GHF distribution points, the ministry said.

Israel’s war on Gaza has killed a total of 57,762 Palestinians and injured 137,656 since October 7, 2023, the ministry added.

Civil defence says vehicles out of service in northern Gaza

The Gaza civil defence says it has been left without any vehicles to conduct rescue operations in the Gaza and North Gaza governorates, with the exception of a single firetruck.

In a statement, the organisation said its emergency vehicles have either been destroyed by the Israeli military or unable to be repaired due to a lack of spare parts.

In the other governorates, namely Deir el-Balah, Khan Younis and Rafah, three out of six firetrucks and four out of six ambulances that provided life-saving services to thousands of people have also ceased operations.

The civil defence called on the international community to intervene, pointing out that the suspension of services comes at a time when the Israeli army has intensified its deadly attacks across Gaza and continues to shrink the so-called “humanitarian zone”.


_{Palestinians fleeing Khan Younis make their way towards the al-Mawasi area amid an Israeli ground offensive}

‘Horrific massacre’: At least 10 children among 15 people killed in Deir el-Balah

Gaza’s Government Media Office says at least 10 children and three women were among 15 people killed by Israeli forces in “a brutal, horrific massacre targeting a medical point” in the enclave’s central city of Deir el-Balah.

“The medical point was providing nutritional and medical supplements to a group of sick children and women, as part of the occupation’s starvation policy against civilians, including 1.1 million children in the Gaza Strip,” the statement published on Telegram said.

It added that the attack “exposes the occupation’s deliberate killing of children, women, and civilians, and its indiscriminate targeting of population centres and popular markets”.

“This direct targeting of a humanitarian medical facility is a flagrant violation of all international and humanitarian laws and confirms the occupation’s continued unabated crimes against defenceless civilians,” the office said, calling for the international community “to break its shameful silence”.

Massive Israeli bombardment in northern Gaza

Israeli navy ships fired towards crowds of aid seekers in Gaza: Report

Israeli daily newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth is reporting that Israeli navy ships were used to shoot “deterrent fire” towards crowds of Palestinian aid seekers near GHF distribution sites in early June.

According to the report, the Israeli military confirmed that the ships were used on several occasions for deterrence purposes, saying that those incidents occurred outside of the operating hours of the sites.

The Gaza Health Ministry said on Saturday that more than 700 Palestinians have been killed and nearly 5,000 injured near GHF distribution sites in Gaza while seeking aid.


Cheap, Chinese drones have become crucial Israeli killing machine: Report

Commercial photography drones costing as little as $3,000 have become a key tool for the Israeli military to depopulate swathes of Gaza, according to a new investigation by +972 Magazine and Local Call.

The report found that the “majority of Israeli military companies” in Gaza now use the drones, which have been retrofitted with military attachments known as “iron balls” that allow soldiers to drop a grenade with the press of a button.

The drones are deployed routinely to force people to leave or prevent them from returning to an evacuated area, with testimony from soldiers suggesting that innocent civilians are routinely targeted.

“It was clear that they were trying to return to their homes — there’s no question,” one soldier explained, adding that their bodies were left to be eaten by dogs. “None of them were armed, and nothing was ever found near their bodies. We never fired warning shots. Not at any point.”

“Two sources used variations of the phrase ‘learning through blood’ to describe the army’s expectation that Palestinians will come to understand these arbitrary boundaries after civilians are killed upon entering the area,” the report said.

EU mulls diplomatic action against Israel over human rights: Report

The European Union’s foreign policy arm has presented 10 options for diplomatic action against Israel after it found “indications” last month that Israel breached human rights obligations in a pact governing its ties with the bloc.

In a document prepared for EU member countries and seen by the Reuters news agency, the options shared on Thursday included major steps such as suspending the EU-Israel Association Agreement and more minor actions such as suspending EU-Israel technical projects.

Most of the measures would require the approval of all or most EU member countries. Diplomats say it is not clear whether there is a willingness among a sufficient number of member states to pursue any of them.

In a separate public statement issued on Thursday, the EU announced Israel had agreed to take “significant steps” to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza.

They include an increase in daily deliveries, reopening of closed aid routes, distribution of food via facilities throughout the Gaza Strip, resumption of fuel delivery, protection of aid workers, and “vital infrastructure” repair.

Main events on July 10th

• United Nations officials rallied around Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, who has cast a sharp eye on abuses by Israeli forces in Gaza and the occupied Palestinian territory, after the administration of United States President Donald Trump placed sanctions on her for what it called “political and economic warfare” against Israel. Albanese slammed the sanctions as “obscene”.
• Doctors at the largest hospitals in Gaza have warned that Israel’s blockade of vital fuel supplies is pushing them to the brink, with more than 100 premature babies and 350 dialysis patients at risk amid severe shortages of fuel and electricity.
• Israel continues heavy strikes across Gaza, killing at least 82 Palestinians, including nine children waiting for humanitarian assistance, over the last 24 hours.
• The prospects of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas remain elusive, with the Israeli prime minister insisting that Israel will continue to fight until the Palestinian armed group is totally destroyed and Hamas pushing for a definitive end to the fighting and a withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, which Netanyahu has consistently refused to consider.

Israel doing ‘same song and dance’ on prospects of permanent end to war

Mohamed Elmasry, a professor of media studies at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, says Netanyahu’s conditions for a permanent end to the war on Gaza highlight the fact that he does not really want to end the Israeli assault.

As we’ve been reporting, the Israeli prime minister has said Hamas must lay down its weapons and no longer have “governing or military capabilities” if Israel is to agree to end the fighting.

“What that means is he wants Hamas leaders to give up all of their arms and he wants them to go into exile. That’s obviously a nonstarter. That would end – effectively – Palestinian resistance, and that’s what the Israelis want,” Elmasry told Al Jazeera.

“They want to be able to do what they want to do with the Palestinians without any resistance, and I think it’s becoming clearer and clearer to everyone that that is the complete ethnic cleansing of the Gaza Strip.”

Elmasry said Israel views its latest plan to force Palestinians into what UN officials say would amount to “concentration camps” in the southern Gaza city of Rafah as “the final stage of the genocide”.

“They’re going to push all of the Palestinians into a tiny corner of the Gaza Strip, [and] they’re going to agree to some kind of a temporary ceasefire, which would give them 60 days to buy time to lobby countries to take Palestinians in,” he said.

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Israeli airstrikes kill eight children queuing for aid in Gaza

Israeli airstrikes on a crowd queuing for nutritional supplements in Deir Al Balah, in Gaza, have killed at least 15 Palestinians - eight of them children.