GENEVA: An independent UN expert warned Monday that the Zionist entity’s “genocidal violence” in Gaza risked spreading to other parts of the occupied Palestinian territory amid a large-scale military operation in the West Bank. Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on the rights situation in the Palestinian territories, warned in a statement that the Zionist entity’s recent intensification of its operations in the West Bank, which is separated from Gaza by the Zionist territory, marked “a dangerous escalation”. “(The Zionist entity’s) genocidal violence risks leaking out of Gaza and into the occupied Palestinian territory as a whole,” she said. “The writing is on the wall, and we cannot continue to ignore it. There is mounting evidence that no Palestinian is safe under (the Zionist entity’s) unfettered control.”

Albanese, who is an independent expert appointed by the UN Human Rights Council but who does not speak on behalf of the United Nations, has repeatedly accused the entity of committing genocide in its war in Gaza. Monday’s statement came after days of surging violence, with the Ramallah-based Palestinian health ministry saying Monday that at least 26 Palestinians had been killed since last Wednesday, when the Zionist entity launched simultaneous raids across the northern West Bank. Middle Eastern and Western governments as well as UN officials have called on the Zionist entity to end the large-scale operations in the Palestinian territory, which it has occupied since 1967.

“Apartheid (Zionist entity) is targeting Gaza and the West Bank simultaneously, as part of an overall process of elimination, replacement and territorial expansion,” Albanese said. “The long-standing impunity granted to (the entity) is enabling the de-Palestinization of the occupied territory, leaving Palestinians at the mercy of the forces pursuing their elimination as a national group,” she added.

She called on the international community to “do everything it can to immediately end the risk of genocide against the Palestinian people under (Zionist) occupation, ensure accountability and ultimately end (the Zionist) colonization of Palestinian territory.”

The Zionist entity’s military campaign in Gaza has so far killed at least 40,786 people, according to the territory’s health ministry. The UN rights office says most of the dead are women and children. The entity launched its campaign after Hamas’s October 7 attack which resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, according to an AFP tally based on Zionist official figures. — AFP