UN official: Gaza's humanitarian collapse pushing civilians "back to pre-civilization" amid Israeli campaign

By lauraharris // 2025-07-07

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UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese warns that Israel's prolonged siege and military campaign have pushed Gaza to the brink of physical and psychological collapse, with conditions resembling a "pre-civilized" state.
Albanese describes Israel's actions, such as restricting food, water and aid, as intentional strategies contributing to mass starvation and suffering, particularly in northern Gaza, which is now cut off from international monitoring.
She asserts that Israel's campaign amounts to a "slow-motion ethnic cleansing," aiming to depopulate Gaza, the West Bank and ultimately target Palestinian citizens within Israel.
Albanese reveals that around 50 companies, including arms makers and banks, are profiting from the occupation and may face legal action for violating international humanitarian law, even if based in states that claim to support Palestinian rights.
She urges immediate international intervention through an arms embargo and efforts to break the siege, stating that continued inaction enables profit-driven violence and endangers both Palestinians and Israelis.

Francesca Albanese, the United Nations (UN) special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, has warned that Israel's ongoing siege and military assault on Gaza pushed its population to the brink of collapse, both physically and psychologically. In a searing interview with journalist Chris Hedges, Albanese described the devastation in Gaza as "so rotten, so horrible" that it defies description. She warned that the deliberate withholding of food, water and humanitarian assistance by Israel, compounded by mass bombings and a months-long siege, has degraded the living conditions of Palestinians to a level she likened to a pre-civilized existence. "The situation in Gaza has gone so rotten, so horrible that I really don't have the words to describe it anymore. I remember that when I had the first reports about cases of starvation, it was last year, primarily in northern Gaza, which by the way, is completely cut off our understanding of what’s going on in Gaza," Albanese said. Albanese, an Italian human rights expert and an affiliate scholar at Georgetown University, described the situation as a man-made catastrophe that appears to be "strategic and intentional," forming part of a long-term campaign of ethnic cleansing. (Related: GENOCIDE by STARVATION: Israel's bombing operations have exhausted the food supply in Gaza.) She then revealed that Gaza's north has become a black hole, cut off from international observation. The south, while slightly more accessible, remains a site of mass displacement, starvation and aerial bombardment. Aid trucks are reportedly being used as "bait," funneling Palestinians into heavily surveilled zones where many are gunned down in desperation while attempting to access food. She accused Israel of attempting to engineer a slow-motion ethnic cleansing – first of Gaza, then the West Bank and eventually of Palestinian citizens within Israel itself. "In a sense, the misery that we see is in the south of Gaza. The north is completely obscured. But when I received the first reports on starvation, I remember people from Gaza saying we are turning into monsters. And this is something that I hear more and more from people," she lamented. "The hunger is so much, it's so widespread, so profound that it's turning people into a stage of pre-humanity and this is what happens to people who experience this brutality. They are forced, they are pushed back into a space which predates civilization and, again, thinking that this is strategic, this is intentional from Israel, it's a stain for all of us."

Arms embargo and siege-breaking are the only solutions to stop Israeli violence

During the interview, Albanese also revealed that in her upcoming UN report, she will name approximately 50 companies directly profiting from or enabling Israel's campaign, including arms manufacturers, construction suppliers, tourism companies, banks and tech firms. Some, she revealed, are tied to pension and wealth funds in states that publicly claim to support Palestinian rights. "The genocide in Gaza has not stopped because it's lucrative, it's profitable for far too many. It's a business. People have exploited, I mean, there are corporate entities, including from Palestine-friendly states, who have for decades made businesses and made profits out of the economy of the occupation because Israel has always exploited Palestinian land and resources and Palestinian life," she said. She said the private sector has become a key enabler of this campaign, operating in "gray areas" of international law while benefiting from a lack of scrutiny. Her office has formally put dozens of companies on notice for potential legal liability under international humanitarian law. "The sacrifice of the Palestinians in Gaza will continue unless there is an arms embargo and unless the siege is broken. And it cannot happen without coercive measures," she said. "The only way to protect Israel, to ensure that Israel is protected, is by stopping Israel. Israel is harmful to the Palestinians, to the region, is harmful to many of us and is harmful to itself and its citizens." Visit WWIII.news for more similar stories. Watch this video that discusses how the famine in Gaza is forcing people to eat animal feed to survive.

This video is from Cynthia's Pursuit of Truth channel on Brighteon.com.

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Arms embargo and siege-breaking are the only solutions to stop Israeli violence

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