Israel Bans U.N. Official for Endorsing Palestinian Terror

By Yoni Weiss

On Monday, Israeli authorities announced the decision to bar entry to Francesca Albanese, the U.N.’s “Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories.”

She has a history of making comments justifying Palestinian terror, the authorities noted.

The ban comes as she sought to visit the Palestinian Authority on behalf of the U.N. Human Rights Council. Albanese’s recent statement on social media, downplaying an antisemitic attack, prompted the decision by Foreign Minister Yisrael Katz and Interior Minister Moshe Arbel. They called for the U.N. to publicly disavow her antisemitic remarks and terminate her position immediately.

Albanese, an Italian lawyer, has previously worked for UNRWA in Jordan and has made statements comparing Israel to an “apartheid” state. She has also endorsed the idea of resistance against Israel and deemed Hamas’s murder of Israeli soldiers as “not illegal.”