GENEVA/ Gaza City, Palestinian Territories — The UN called on Washington Thursday to reverse its decision to sanction a UN expert who has repeatedly accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza and has criticised US policy on the war there.

 

United Nations rights chief Volker Turk also called for a halt to "attacks and threats" against people appointed by the UN and other international institutions like the International Criminal Court, whose judges have also been hit with US sanctions.

 

"I urge the prompt reversal of US sanctions against a Special Rapporteur of the UN Human Rights Council, Francesca Albanese, in response to work she has undertaken under the mandate on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory," Turk said in a statement.

 

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday announced that Washington was sanctioning the outspoken expert "for her illegitimate and shameful efforts to prompt [ICC] action against US and Israeli officials, companies, and executives".

 

Albanese slammed the sanctions as "calculated to weaken my mission".

 

"I will continue to do what I have to do," she told reporters during a visit to Slovenia.

 

Rubio slammed the UN expert's strident criticism of the United States and said she recommended to the ICC that arrest warrants be issued targeting Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

 

Rubio, whose country has boycotted the UN rights council since President Donald Trump returned to power in January, also accused Albanese of "biased and malicious activities" and accused her of having "spewed unabashed antisemitism [and] support for terrorism".

 

"We will not tolerate these campaigns of political and economic warfare, which threaten our national interests and sovereignty," Rubio said.

 

'Genocide'

 

Albanese has long faced harsh criticism by Israel and some of its allies over her relentless criticism and long-standing accusations that Israel is committing "genocide" in Gaza.

 

The Italy-born expert, who assumed her current mandate in 2022, released a damning report earlier this month denouncing companies , many of them American , that she said "profited from the Israeli economy of illegal occupation, apartheid, and now genocide" in the occupied Palestinian territories.

 

The report provoked a furious response from Israel, while some of the named companies also raised objections.

 

Washington last month slapped sanctions on four ICC judges, in part over the court's arrest warrant for Netanyahu, barring them from the United States.

 

UN special rapporteurs like Albanese are independent experts who are appointed by the UN rights council but do not speak on behalf of the United Nations.

 

Meanwhile Gaza's civil defence agency on Thursday said 23 people, including eight children, were killed in Israeli bombardments overnight on the Palestinian territory.

 

The series of strikes came just hours after Hamas, which runs Gaza, announced it was willing to release 10 Israeli hostages as part of ceasefire talks in Qatar.

 

The high death toll comes after the agency said 26 people were killed across Gaza on Wednesday, 29 on Tuesday and 12 on Monday.

 

Agency official Mohammed al-Mughair said the latest wave of bombings hit central and southern Gaza, with the deadliest killing 12 in Deir el-Balah.

 

Eight children and two women were among the dead, he said, adding Israeli aircraft targeted "a gathering of citizens in front of a medical point".

 

Two people were killed in separate strikes on the Nuseirat camp while four lost their lives at the Bureij camp, both in central Gaza, Mughair said.

 

Five people living in tents in the Al-Mawasi area of Khan Yunis in the south, he added.

 

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

 

AFP was not able to independently verify the tolls and details due to restrictions imposed on media in Gaza.

 

The war began after Hamas militants attacked Israeli border communities on October 7, 2023, leading to the deaths of 1,219 people, most of them civilians.

 

Israel's retaliatory strikes have killed at least 57,680 Palestinians in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry.The United Nations deems those figures to be reliable.