(30 Jul 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Rome, Italy – 29 July 2025
1. U.N. special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza1 Francesca Albanese at news conference surrounded by journalists inside Italian Parliament conference room
2. Various of Albanese during news conference
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Francesca Albanese, U.N. special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza:
"It’s very serious to be on the list of the people sanctioned by the U.S, because I understand that the idea of the sanctions is intended for criminals and so they shouldn’t be facilitated in any forms or sort. Which means creating emptiness around them. They cannot have financial interactions, cannot have credit cards connected to any American circuit or bank, no one can enter relations with the person under sanction. I think that the sanctions are a very powerful tool to deter the commission of crimes. The point is that when they are used in such a political way, they are harmful, dangerous, and they create an enormous presence. So, of course, look, there is no question that they have already harmed me enough. I mean, my daughter is American. I’ve been living in the US, and I have some assets in the U.S., so of course it’s going to harm me. What can I do? I mean I did everything I did in good faith, and knowing that, again, my commitment to justice is more important than personal interests, of course clearly."
5. Albanese during news conference
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Francesca Albanese, U.N. special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza:
"I do see, I do sense, I do feel that there is a change. People continue to be shocked and disgruntled and the numbers of those who feel this way seem to keep on growing because there is more awareness, because it’s more difficult to deny what Israel is doing. As someone was saying today in the parliament his is the first genocide that is known on TikTok. It’s shocking. Really, I don’t think that there are words left to describe what’s happening to the Palestinian people."
7. Albanese during news conference
8. Wide protesters outside Italian Parliament waving Palestinian flags and holding signs against genocide in Gaza
9. Banner reading (Italian and English) "Gaza is not a war, it is a genocide."
10. Various of protesters holding Palestinian flags and signs advocating for Gaza
STORYLINE:
An independent U.N. investigator and outspoken critic of Israel’s policies in Gaza said on Tuesday that the sanctions recently imposed on her by the Trump administration will have serious impacts on her life and work.
Francesca Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza, is a member of a group of experts chosen by the 47-member U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva. She is tasked with probing human rights abuses in the Palestinian territories and has been vocal about what she has described as the “genocide” by Israel against Palestinians in Gaza.
Both Israel and the United States, which provides military support to its close ally, have strongly denied that accusation.
Washington has decried what it called a “campaign of political and economic warfare” against the U.S. and Israel, and earlier this month imposed sanctions on Albanese, following an unsuccessful U.S. pressure campaign to force the international body to remove her from her post.
“It’s very serious to be on the list of the people sanctioned by the U.S.,” Albanese told The Associated Press in Rome on Tuesday, adding that individuals sanctioned by the U.S. cannot have financial interactions or credit cards with any American bank.
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