Category World News

Rwandan President Paul Kagame praises Trumpian diplomacy for de-emphasizing ‘democracy, freedom and human rights’.

After the US government placed sanctions on the United Nations’ special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, her life turned upside down.

Credit cards stopped working, she told Al Jazeera. A hotel reservation booked by the European Parliament was cancelled. Medical insurance was denied. For Albanese, the consequences of her work on Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people of Gaza were not just professional — they were personal, too.

“We are turned into non-persons,” she said at the Doha Forum, calling the sanctions imposed against her “unlawful” under international law.

“But again, for me, it’s important that people understand the extent … the United States, Israel and others would go to silence the voice of justice, the voice of human rights,” Albanese said.

As leaders, diplomats, and legal experts gathered in Qatar’s capital for the Doha Forum this weekend under the theme “Justice in Action: Beyond Promises to Progress”, the crisis in Gaza dominated discussions.

Allegations of genocide against Israel, repeated vetoes blocking UN ceasefire resolutions, and growing pressure on international justice mechanisms have made Gaza a test case for the rules-based international order, raising questions about whether international law is capable of providing justice.

‘Sense of insecurity around me’

According to Albanese’s legal assessments, Israel’s conduct in its war on Gaza constitutes a genocide, a term that prominent human rights groups such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Israel’s B’Tselem have also used.

When announcing the sanctions on Albanese, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio accused her of waging a “campaign of political and economic warfare against the United States and Israel”. She says the allegation is baseless.

“I have been subjected to smear campaigns,” she said, adding that US officials have accused her of being an anti-Semite, of supporting violence, and of failing to condemn the crimes committed on October 7 against Israeli civilians.

“It has created a sense of insecurity around me. I have received threats from all corners,” Albanese said.

In addition to targeting Albanese, the US imposed sanctions in August on nine judges and prosecutors of the International Criminal Court (ICC), including two European citizens, after the court began investigating alleged Israeli war crimes in Gaza.

“This is mafia-style intimidation that we are subjected to, just for doing our job,” Albanese noted, warning that sanctions and intimidation of legal experts set a dangerous precedent.

“There will be that pressure [on ICC judges and legal experts] that, if I go on this route, this is going to be scrutinised. This is the idea, to make it impossible for the organisation, for the ICC to work,” she cautioned.

“Imagine that every US person interacting with us, someone who works in the US or is a citizen, could go to jail for up to 20 years. It creates a chilling effect.”

Western hesitance

In November 2024, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged “war crimes”.

The US called the move “outrageous”, and while the United Kingdom and Canada said they would adhere to international law, they did not make clear if they would uphold the warrant.

Many Western countries have not described Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide and have continued to send the country arms, despite growing allegations of war crimes occurring in Gaza.

Albanese emphasised that nations continuing to transfer arms are failing in their legal obligations.

“They have the obligation to prevent a genocide that has already been recognised as plausible in January 2024 by the International Court of Justice,” she said.

Janine Di Giovanni, co-founder of the Reckoning Project, which documents war crimes in Sudan, Ukraine and Gaza, said the position of many Western states reeked of a glaring “double standard”.

“There is one set of laws and rules that pertain to Ukraine … and another set for brown and Black people,” she said, pointing to the ICC’s historical focus on African leaders and the failure of Western powers to hold Israel accountable.

Di Giovanni directed her criticism at European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, saying the former Estonian prime minister had been “negligent” when it came to Gaza.

“She points out over and over again what [Russian President] Putin has done in Ukraine, but not a word about Gaza,” she added.

“She’s the EU foreign policy chief. She has a responsibility to point out Israel’s criminality.”

Is international law still relevant?

With multilateral institutions and the international law system coming under growing pressure from nation-states, Albanese said that international law does work and that “we need to make it work”.

“I often make the example, if a cure doesn’t work, would you trash all medicine? No,” she asserted.

“This is the first genocide in history that has awakened a conscience, a global conscience, and has the potential to be stopped.”

Meanwhile, Reckoning Project’s Di Giovanni said the UN General Assembly could be “activated to work at a higher level and a more effective level than what they’re doing, while the Security Council is blocked”.

“But maybe this shows us that we need to have a greater reform for how the Security Council works,” she said.

Di Giovanni added that it was crucial to address the “extraordinary heinous crimes that Netanyahu and others” have committed, or else it would send a message that “impunity is rampant”.

The Road to Damascus documents the lightning offensive that toppled the al-Assad regime.

“[The death of Yasser Abu Shabab] marks the end of a dark chapter – one that did not reflect our tribe’s history and principles …The Tarabin tribe stands with the Palestinian resistance in all its factions … it refuses to let our tribe’s name or members be exploited to form militias that work for the benefit of the occupation.”

This is what Gaza’s Tarabin tribe said in a statement following the killing of its member Yasser Abu Shabab on December 4. There have been conflicting reports about how he died and who killed him. Some have said it was Hamas fighters who shot him, others that members of his own tribe did. Reportedly, he was taken to an Israeli hospital, where he died of his wounds.

Israel framed the killing as a “tribal dispute” rather than retribution for his collaboration; this was also the position of the Popular Forces militia, which Abu Shabab commanded. This narrative, of course, ignores the fact that his own tribe saw him as a collaborator and welcomed his death.

Throughout the war, Abu Shabab’s name was synonymous with collaboration with Israel. He was a key partner in Gaza in securing safe passage for Israeli troops, searching for Israeli captives, killing Palestinian resistance members, and, most infamously, looting aid trucks. Before he was killed, Abu Shabab was reportedly being considered for the position of governor of Rafah to be appointed by Israel.

His death deals a massive blow to Israel’s efforts to establish a new Palestinian administration in Gaza that responds to its wishes and oppresses the Palestinians. It is yet another proof that the Palestinian people will never accept colonial rule.

For decades, Israel has used collaborators to undermine Palestinian unity and governance. In the early 1980s, it spearheaded the creation of so-called “village leagues” in the occupied West Bank. These represented institutions of local rule headed by individuals funded and protected by Israel in exchange for their loyalty. The aim was to diminish the influence of the Palestine Liberation Organization and spread disunity. However, the leagues were rejected by the Palestinians as illegitimate, and the whole initiative collapsed within a few years.

Now Israel is trying to replicate the same model in Gaza. Funding and arming Abu Shabab was supposed to create a centre of coercive power in Gaza, which would have been fully loyal to Israel. It would have allowed the Israeli occupation to come after the resistance, exterminating its fighters, without having to get its soldiers involved any more or bearing the diplomatic cost of doing so.

Even if Abu Shabab had not succeeded in establishing control over Rafah or the whole of Gaza, sowing internal conflict would have been beneficial enough for Israel. It would have undermined internal security in Gaza, damaging the cohesion of the Palestinian society and encouraging people to leave.

But just like in the past, Israel’s plan was doomed to fail.

Although Abu Shabab had significant financial and military support from the occupation, he could not convince his tribe to follow him or the people of Rafah to join him. He was only able to recruit takfiri extremists, criminals and formerly imprisoned collaborators.

The vast majority of Palestinians saw him as a collaborator. Abu Shabab could not recruit even among those who oppose or dislike the resistance factions because they too would not sell out their principles and work for the genocidal power killing Palestinians every day.

While Abu Shabab provided Israel with security and technical services on the ground, his power was built entirely on crimes and theft, which made him just a hated traitor, not a leader. Despite bragging in videos about giving away stolen aid to the poor or building tent camps with looted tents, he was unable to rally people behind himself.

The Israeli plan to make Abu Shabab into a governor failed because it failed to take into account that one cannot build legitimate governance on crimes.

As much as Israel tried to protect him, his death was inevitable. His tribe and others in Rafah could not accept his collaboration with the occupation, which hurt their honour and longstanding moral ground.

When news of Abu Shabab’s death spread, people in Gaza celebrated, going out into the streets and distributing sweets. Palestinians who had different perspectives about Hamas’s actions were united in their joy. Israel’s attempt to put its hand on Gaza’s future was severed.

Abu Shabab’s death, in the end, sent a powerful message: that any collaborator is a target and no collaborator can achieve legitimacy. After more than two years of genocide, the Palestinian people’s spirit has not broken; they have not given up on their land and on their just cause.