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<\/a><\/p>\nUN Special Rapporteur on Palestine Francesca Albanese. (Baris Seckin\/Anadolu via Getty Images)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cIf you don\u2019t take part in active combat, if you are not a militant actively involved in combat, you cannot be shot at,\u201d Albanese, whom the United Nations considers an \u201cindependent expert,\u201d told JNS at a press briefing, during which she outlined her latest report, in which she accuses Israel of \u201cmediacide.\u201d<\/p>\n
The U.N. adviser, who has often accused the Jewish state of \u201cgenocide,\u201d said at the beginning of the briefing that she couldn\u2019t attend in person due to U.S. sanctions on her.<\/p>\n
She told JNS that Gazans \u201chaving been photographed with a uniform\u201d of a terror group \u201cdoesn\u2019t make the journalist killable.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m saying that, because there are Israeli journalists who have been active in the army who have even taken part in the expeditions into Gaza, when they go back to do their journalist work,\u201d she told JNS. \u201cDoes it make a target?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me the answer is clear. A person who\u2019s not actively involved into combat doesn\u2019t lose civilian status. That\u2019s it. Israelis or Palestinians alike,\u201d Albanese said.<\/p>\n
Brian Cox, a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute in Canada and a U.S. Army military lawyer for seven years, told JNS that Albanese is \u201ctaking an unrealistically narrow interpretation of the international law standard.\u201d<\/p>\n
The U.N. adviser is \u201cpassing that off as if it were the legitimate standard that countries, including Israel, should recognize,\u201d Cox said.<\/p>\n
The standard that Albanese described \u201cis just not consistent with any state practice,\u201d said the former military prosecutor, federal prosecutor, brigade judge advocate and military magistrate.<\/p>\n
Albanese\u2019s view is \u201cone that wouldn\u2019t even be supported by the International Committee of the Red Cross interpretive guidance,\u201d which was developed because international law on the matter of direct participation in hostilities was left \u201cintentionally vague,\u201d Cox told JNS.<\/p>\n
Cox noted the operational law handbook developed by the national security law department at the Judge Advocate General\u2019s Legal Center and School.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe United States approach begins by recognizing that members of hostile, non-state armed groups are combatants, who may be targeted based on their formal or functional membership in the armed group,\u201d the handbook states.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn such cases, U.S. forces need not conduct a DPH analysis as group membership provides the proper basis for attack,\u201d it states. (DPH means a \u201cdirect part in hostilities.\u201d)<\/p>\n
Israel\u2019s view is mainly similar to that of the United States, according to Cox.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not uncommon for humanitarian advocates and activists like this particular special rapporteur, especially, to misrepresent international law in a way that supports their preferred narrative,\u201d he told JNS. \u201cThey\u2019re not experts in this international law involving armed conflict.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Albanese told JNS at the U.N. press conference that she doesn\u2019t \u201ceven enter the quagmire of the, like, conundrum of Hamas and terrorists, because let\u2019s leave the terrorist scheme aside.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very convenient. It has been the label to kill everyone to bring famine upon everyone in Gaza to destroy Gaza,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Albanese told JNS that \u201cI think you have seen the images of Gaza.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLabeling everyone as \u2018terrorists\u2019 has paid off. Voila. The price is in the rubble. However, what I\u2019m saying in order for\u2014a journalist is a civilian,\u201d she said. \u201cIn order to lose his or her civilian status, the journalist needs to take active part in combat.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo even assuming that Israel had a right to self-defense, and it doesn\u2019t under international law. Israel doesn\u2019t have and cannot claim the right to wage a war against Gaza,\u201d she told JNS. \u201cThe reason why the international community is letting it happen is not even a mystery\u2014is known and it\u2019s very saddening, depressing in fact. But Israel could not be there shooting at everyone just because he claims that these people are terrorists.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAll the more people who he, Israel, deems have been affiliated to a terrorist organization. Because again, if you don\u2019t take part in active combat, if you\u2019re not a militant actively involved in combat, you cannot be shot,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
International law \u201cmakes clear that being affiliated or even sharing information that is seen as coming from a belligerent party\u201d doesn\u2019t suspend the protection \u201cthat is guaranteed by international law,\u201d she told JNS.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s only taking active part in combat while the person is hit that makes the person lose protected status,\u201d Albanese told JNS.<\/p>\n
The U.N. adviser also told JNS that she didn\u2019t have the same patience as others at the United Nations for questions from JNS.<\/p>\n
International law is not clear about what constitutes a journalist taking direct part in hostilities. The International Committee of the Red Cross states<\/u><\/a><\/span> that \u201cpassing on tactical information\u201d or \u201cengaging in espionage\/spying\u201d are \u201clikely to be a direct participation in hostilities.\u201d<\/p>\nThe Committee to Protect Journalists took 22 names off its list of media members killed during the war after an internal investigation showed that they had terror ties, and the BBC is conducting a review of its own list based on a report in the Telegraph that 53 people in the BBC database of killed Gazan journalists had links to Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad or other terror groups.<\/p>\n
Albanese told JNS that her report relies \u201con the figures provided by the United Nations, and everything I\u2019ve asserted in my report has been checked and double-checked with U.N. personnel, as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf any one of the Palestinian journalists had been involved in the attacks, as you claim, in the massacres that Israel suffered on Oct. 7, they were supposed to face justice,\u201d she said. \u201cI don\u2019t have information that this is the case.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you do, I would be happy to receive and review,\u201d she told JNS.<\/p>\n
JNS asked the office of Volker T\u00fcrk, U.N. high commissioner for human rights, for a copy of its list of slain journalists, upon which Albanese said she relied in her report.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t release lists of verified fatalities. We release numbers and analysis of trends,\u201d a spokesman for T\u00fcrk told JNS. \u201cOur methodologies are public and explained in detail in all of our reports.\u201d<\/p>\n