29 Winter 2026 asked about the well-documented Hamas rapes of Israeli women on October 7, Albanese said “I didn’t find any convincing evidence.” She was, meanwhile, “disturbed by the weaponization of anything that … happened on the 7th of October.” She commented that she found no evidence “that … the crimes that were committed against Israelis on the 7th of October were … propelled by antisemitism.” This assertion, which blamed colonialism instead, ignored Hamas’s long obsession with the Jews in addition to phone calls from October 7 in which Hamas killers boasted, to parents no less, about killing Jews with their bare hands.33 Albanese evidently hoped to impress the legal community with what she called “one of my key findings.”34 It was not a finding so much as an allegation that Israel deployed something Albanese called “humanitarian camouflage.” The “Anatomy” report mentioned it. Then, with law professors Luigi Daniele and Nicola Perugini, Albanese published a 35-page booklet Humanitarian Camouflage: Israel Rewrites the Laws of War to Legitimize Genocide in Gaza in October 2024.35 The authors unveiled what they called an “unprecedented” global deception on Israel’s part. By using evacuation warnings, civilian safe zones, and references to Hamas’s use of human shields in urban areas (which Albanese denied ever occurred), Israel hid genocide beneath alleged adherence to the Geneva Conventions. This breathtaking theory made every Israeli action part of a genocide. Humanitarian Camouflage also recalled antisemitic tropes of mass world deception in the service of evil. In numerous speaking engagements at leading universities in 2024 and 2025, Albanese became the legal expert, displacing for many the International Court of Justice. Her hosts at Princeton University hailed her as a “leading international lawyer.”36 Her hosts at Erasmus University Rotterdam said that her work was “meticulously grounded in international law and empirical evidence.”37 SOAS did not profess academic objectivity. They claimed to “stand in solidarity with Rapporteur Albanese in the face of attempts to silence her powerful and courageous voice.” She answered “smears, slurs, [and] accusations of antisemitism,” they said, with “vigor and moral clarity.”38 In university and other settings, Albanese receives more than just a polite welcome. The lecture hall at University of Toronto, bedecked in Palestinian flags, gave her a rapturous standing ovation when she entered on November 7, 2024.39 Such acclaim is unprecedented for a UN official, and the joy exuded for a speaker discussing the solemn topic of genocide is truly strange. One must explain it beyond a Der Spiegel article noting that Albanese “wears her nails painted red” and has “fine facial features.”40 Mehdi Hasan’s platform, Zeteo, focuses on her use of social media, describing Albanese “an internet idol to her many admirers who study and share her press conferences and viral diplomatic interventions… Wherever she goes, she seems to become … the epicenter of attention…”41 33. Avraham Russell Shalev, “Hamas’ October 7 Genocide: Legal Analysis and the Weaponization of Reverse Accusations – A Study in Modern Genocide Recognition and Denial,” 58(2-3) ISRAEL LAW REVIEW 343-382(2025). 34. UN Human Rights Council, “Francesca Albanese Alleges Israeli Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza,” YOUTUBE (March 26, 2024), available at https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=3XrwNGWF108 35. Luigi Daniele, Nicola Perugini, Francesca Albanese, HUMANITARIAN CAMOUFLAGE: ISRAEL REWRITES THE LAWS OF WAR TO LEGITIMIZE GENOCIDE IN GAZA. CURRENT ISSUES IN DEPTH (Institute for Palestine Studies 2024). 36. “Dean’s Leadership Series – Francesca Albanese, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories,” SPIA (Oct. 30, 2024), available at https:// spia.princeton.edu/events/deans-leadership-seriesfrancesca-albanese-united-nations-special-rapporteuroccupied 37. International Institute of Social Studies, “Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories | Francesca Albanese at Erasmus University Rotterdam,” YOUTUBE at 7:57 (Feb. 14, 2025), available at https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=vtLk3BR9V50 38. Supra note 21, at 6:17. 39. On the Line Media, “Francesca Albanese at the University of Toronto,” YOUTUBE (Nov. 7, 2024), available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEqpNeEIdNw 40. Nicola Abé, “UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese is Both Hated and Loved,” DER SPIEGEL (Aug. 8, 2025), available at https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/ the-human-rights-populist-un-special-rapporteurfrancesca-albanese-is-both-hated-and-loved-a-2f58c3482621-413a-9d42-3f03724a556e 41. Fatima Bhutto, “We Cannot be Clock-Worked into Acceptance of this Brutal Violence,” ZETEO (Jan. 26, 2025), available at https://zeteo.com/p/francescaalbanese-profile-chronicling-gaza-genocide
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