GENEVA, March 17, 2025 (WAFA) – A UN expert warned Monday that Palestinians face a real threat of mass ethnic cleansing as Israel implements its long-term plan to take over Palestinian land and displace Palestinians.

The UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory, Francesca Albanese, added that ethnic cleansing involves acts that constitute war crimes, crimes against humanity, and even genocide.

She noted that the occupied West Bank is facing its worst assault since the Second Intifada of 2000, characterized by airstrikes, armored bulldozers, and controlled demolitions to carry out raids and home demolitions as well as to destroy villages and vital infrastructure, including agricultural land.

She emphasized that history shows that Israel's strategy to build a "Greater Israel" free of Palestinian presence relies on forced displacement and oppression of the Palestinian people, saying that Israel's conduct aimed at ethnically cleansing the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea is tantamount to a genocidal campaign to erase the Palestinians as a people.

She urged the international community to fulfill its obligations to protect Palestinians from annihilation, noting that the only way is to implement the International Court of Justice’s Advisory Opinion, which found that Israel's decades-long occupation of the Palestinian territories was "unlawful", and that its "near-complete separation" of people in the occupied West Bank breached international laws concerning "racial segregation" and "apartheid" and which ordered Israel to take all measures within its power to prevent acts of genocide in the besieged enclave and to punish incitement to genocide, among other orders.

Albanese concluded that Palestine was a deep wound, affirming that what was happening to the Palestinians was a foreseeable tragedy, a stain on Israel's history for which the international community collectively bears responsibility.

She said it was not too late for the world to rise and do what is right.

A.D./ K.F.