On 23 March 2026, addressing the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Francesca Albanese said she stood before the Council with a deep sense of both injustice and resolve: “I have served this council with rigor and in good faith,” yet had faced “relentless personal threats, insults, and reprisals.” She said she remained committed “to bear witness, to speak the truth, and to reject complicity in this time of unremitting criminality,” as she presented her eighth report, which she described as documenting “the ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people.” Her statement focused on what she called Israel’s “widespread and systematic use of torture,” and on a broader “torturous environment” imposed on Palestinians across the occupied Palestinian territory.
Albanese argued that the testimonies and evidence documented in her report were “not just tragic stories of suffering” but “evidence of atrocity crimes,” concluding that “genocide has become the ultimate form of torture: continuous, generational, collective.” She urged states to act under international law, stressing that “Torture is absolutely prohibited in all circumstances, and so is genocide,” and warned that “disregard for international law will not stop in Palestine.” She ended with a stark appeal to the international community, saying: “What is lost in Palestine will be lost to us all.”
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