Looking back, meeting Francesca Albanese at a café wasn’t the best idea. Before we could even begin, the waitress asked for a photo with the Italian human rights lawyer. Then the cashier did, too. Soon, the cook came out from the kitchen in his uniform for a group picture, and some customers also wanted their turn. Albanese was warm and patient with everyone, chatting easily in three languages, so it all took a while.
Lately, Albanese, 49, has been getting this kind of celebrity welcome wherever she goes—which is unusual for an unpaid UN legal expert. Normally, her title—UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967—might sound like a sure path to obscurity. She is one of over 40 special rapporteurs, independent experts appointed to conduct pro bono investigations and reports on areas of concern.
But these are not ordinary times. The unresolved conflict between Israel and Palestine has shown, generation after generation, its power to unsettle the world. The Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, which killed about 1,200 people, triggered a fierce Israeli response that has killed more than 75,000 Palestinians in Gaza, displaced over 90% of its population, and left most of the territory in ruins.
Albanese was not the first to call the Israeli military campaign a genocide, but she was the first with “UN” in her title to do so. Over the past two years, she has consistently used her platform to condemn not only the Israeli government and military but also the network of Western states and corporations that have supported them. Her message, delivered forcefully in person and in a series of UN reports, is that we are part of an interconnected system capable of mass killing.
For taking this public stand, Albanese has received death threats and put her family at risk. She faced potential arrest in Germany over her choice of words. The Trump administration labeled her a “specially designated national,” a term usually applied to terrorists, drug traffickers, and sometimes murderous dictators. She is the first UN official to receive this designation.
“It was bad. That sort of puts you together with mass murderers and international drug dealers,” Albanese says. “It was a paradox—facing one of the harshest forms of punishment without due process, because I haven’t even been given the chance to defend myself. I’ve just been sanctioned without a trial.”
Trump’s executive order sanctioning Albanese barred any American person or entity from providing her with “funds, goods, or services”—a definition so broad it has been likened to a “civil death.” Her apartment in Washington, bought when her family lived there, has been seized. She can no longer use a credit card anywhere, as almost all such transactions are processed by U.S.-based services. “I go around with cash, or I have to borrow from friends or family,” she says.
She also accuses pro-Israel activists based in Geneva of harassing her husband, Massimiliano Calì, a senior economist at the World Bank, in a campaign that led to his removal from a lead role managing the Bank’s Syria portfolio. “The World Bank was completely craven,” Albanese says. “He has stellar performance records in all his positions.”
Calì and the couple’s 13-year-old daughter, a U.S. citizen, are now suing Trump and top administration officials in federal district court in Washington, arguing that their constitutional rights under the First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendments have been violated.The seizure of property without due process is a key issue. Due to UN policy, Albanese cannot personally bring the case forward. Instead, a group of U.S. law professors filed an amicus brief on her family’s behalf, warning that the personalized sanctions have a “chilling effect” on free speech.
Albanese’s demonization by the Trump administration has only elevated her status as a popular hero to some. She is part of a small but notable resurgence of the left in the West, fueled by outrage over Gaza. This movement also includes Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral win in New York and the rise of Zack Polanski and the Green Party in the UK.
“The genocides in Rwanda and Bosnia did not provoke this kind of mass reaction,” Albanese notes. “That means human rights are better understood now. This is a test for the universality of rights and for our humanity.” She attributes the difference in public response partly to Western complicity. While the slaughter in Rwanda was carried out with machetes and the mass executions in Srebrenica with guns, many Palestinians in Gaza have been killed by precision bombs supplied by the U.S., guided by AI-assisted targeting algorithms. “It is very much a genocide of the 21st century,” she says.
Alongside her human rights work, Albanese is publishing a book titled When the World Sleeps: Stories, Words and Wounds of Palestine. Part memoir and part elegy, the book honors the dignity of Palestinians under oppression and what she calls their “rage without hate.” It is structured around the stories of ten characters, beginning with Hind Rajab, a five-year-old girl killed in Gaza in January 2024. Hind was found curled on the back seat of a family car alongside four cousins, after hours of pleading for help in a phone call to the Palestinian Red Crescent.
Another character featured is Alon Confino, an Italian-Israeli university professor who died in 2024. He defended Albanese when she was first accused of antisemitism. He was among the many Jewish progressives with whom she has campaigned against definitions of antisemitism that include criticism of the Israeli state—a blurring of lines they argue is as dangerous for Jews as it is for Palestinians.
When the World Sleeps traces Albanese’s “intolerance for injustice” to her upbringing in a small town in southern Italy, a world permeated by organized crime and clientelist politics, where success depended on political connections. “I was horrified as a young person by this mentality where you could be good at what you do, but you never trusted yourself, so you always had to ask the powerful for help,” she recalls.
Her resistance to this corruption was inspired by her parents, who refused to give in to it. Her role models were Italy’s martyrs for justice: anti-mafia magistrates Paolo Borsellino, assassinated by a car bomb in 1992, and Giovanni Falcone, killed the same year along with his wife and three bodyguards when the mafia blew up a section of highway as their car passed over it. “I felt the nation’s pain over the loss of these two precious figures of justice,” she says. “That planted an important seed in me.”
She thought of them especially when she began receiving death threats after presenting her March 2024 report on the Gaza conflict, which she titled Anatomy of a Genocide. One anonymous caller threatened that her daughter would be raped, even naming the school she attended in Tunis, Tunisia, where the family lives. Albanese sought police protection and, while she does not detail the arrangements, states, “I have what I need.”
She describes the period following Anatomy of a Genocide as “brutal.” “That is when I started wondering: is it worth it? I have two kids. What if they harm them? I cannot…””I take this responsibility,” she says. She describes the dilemma as an “unresolved question,” though her next words suggest she has settled it for now: “There is a lot that I’m putting on the line, but, at the same time, I don’t have any alternative. I still need to continue to throw water on the fire, and I have a bigger bucket right now… and strong arms.”
Her “bigger bucket” is the UN mandate her team holds to investigate and report at the highest international level—and she plans to keep throwing water for the remaining two years of her second three-year term. She believes she is confronting not only the governments of Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu but also “predatory elites” worldwide who are willing to defend the accumulation of unprecedented wealth with violence. Israel’s war against Palestinian resistance, she says, is just one of many battlefields.
Last year, Germany attempted to ban her and deployed riot police to a venue where she was scheduled to speak. The police even threatened to arrest her for referring to two genocides carried out by Germany in the first half of the 20th century: those of the Herero and Nama peoples in Namibia, and the Holocaust. By placing the two in the same category, she was told she had trivialized the Holocaust—a potential criminal offense. She had also referred to the area under Israeli control as “from the river to the sea,” a phrase banned in Germany due to its use by Hamas.
She describes the UK as more outwardly polite, though she adds: “[Keir] Starmer probably hates me as much as [Giorgia] Meloni and [Emmanuel] Macron.” She calls the UK government’s suppression of Palestine Action “brutal” and labels the prime minister a “monster” for arguing in 2023 that Israel “has the right” to cut off electricity and gas to Gaza: “You’re not a human rights person at all if you say such a monstrosity. And the university that gave you your law degree should take it away from you.”
In June 2025, Albanese published a report titled From Economy of Occupation to Economy of Genocide, which revealed how many of the world’s corporations, including household names, have investments linked to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories.
Before our interview, when I asked others in the international human rights field for their views on Albanese, I found great admiration for her commitment and impact. However, a few expressed regret that she mixes the dispassionate language of a lawyer with the passionate rhetoric of a political campaigner. This, the doubters argued, makes her an easier target for those defending war crimes.
“I have two kids. What if they harm them? There is a lot that I’m putting on the line, but I don’t have any alternative.”
Albanese has been cheerful and amicable throughout our conversation, but my mention of these criticisms sparks a flash of anger. “So don’t ask me political questions,” she says. “This is such a paternalistic approach. It always comes from men.”
When I counter, sheepishly but truthfully, that the comments had come from women, Albanese is unfazed. “There are alpha people among women as well,” she says. “Excuse me, why can’t I express a political view? Everything that is being done is political. The way human rights are not respected is political. But we are used to thinking in silos, so I need to stay in my silo?”
At this strained moment, another customer in the café, a young woman, approaches. “Can I just interrupt you to say that I admire you. Thank you. You’re doing a great job,” she tells Albanese. The admirer is Greek, and Albanese is delighted, telling her she will soon be presenting the Greek translation of her book in Athens and that they should meet again then.
It’s another…Another reminder of the special rapporteur’s extraordinary visibility and influence. After the woman leaves, a reassured Albanese addresses the possibility of a future in politics. “In Italy, some people are afraid and some are hopeful that I’ll join a political party. Frankly, if there were a party that truly felt like a home big enough for me to continue being who I am, I would do it,” she says, before quickly adding, “But there isn’t.”
She describes herself as too much a product of the last century, with all the biases that come with that era. Instead, she sees her role as “making space” for a younger generation who are “wise enough and humble enough to enter politics and take good care of what remains of our world.”
That evening, a long line of students from around the world, many wearing Palestinian keffiyehs, forms outside the University of Geneva to hear Albanese speak. It is her second invited event on campus, and the hall is packed well beyond its 400-person capacity.
She addresses the crowd just as she speaks in private—conversational, humorous, full of stories and broad insights. She offers a narrative of hope, suggesting the world is in the midst of a transformation. “Justice will bloom for you and your children,” she tells the audience. “We have the power to undo this. We will change it. Collectively, we are doing better. This is the first genocide that has caused such an upheaval. Palestine has become a wound, but it has become our wound.”
The students applaud nearly every other sentence, and almost everyone stays to ask questions. A young Georgian woman stands to say Albanese has inspired everyone in her circle. Another asks how to find political courage, hinting she lost a job for speaking out about Gaza. Albanese’s advice is never to give in: “My life has become a rollercoaster,” she says, referring to death threats and sanctions. “I never imagined living without a bank card, but I do. People help me. My freedom is stronger than my fear. You are defeated the moment you stop fighting.”
When the World Sleeps: Stories, Words and Wounds of Palestine will be published in Australia (Hardie Grant, A$24.99) and the US on April 28 (Other Books, US$28.99), and in the UK on April 30 (Hardie Grant, £16.99).
Frequently Asked Questions
FAQs Francesca Albanese UN Special Rapporteur on Threats Accusations
Q1 Who is Francesca Albanese and what is her job
A Francesca Albanese is the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967 Her job is to independently monitor and report on human rights conditions there for the UN
Q2 What exactly did she accuse Israel of
A In a report published in March 2024 she concluded there were reasonable grounds to believe Israel had committed acts that amount to genocide against Palestinians in Gaza during its military operation following the October 7th attacks
Q3 What kind of threats is she facing
A She has reported receiving a high volume of death threats hate mail and online harassment This includes targeted smear campaigns doxxing and intimidation aimed at silencing her work
Q4 Why is she being threatened
A Her accusations of genocide are extremely serious and legally consequential Critics including the Israeli government and its supporters strongly reject her findings The threats appear to be an attempt to discredit her pressure her into silence and deter her from fulfilling her UN mandate
Q5 What has been the official response to these threats
A The United Nations has stated it takes the security of its experts seriously and has measures to protect them However Albanese has publicly expressed that the response has felt insufficient leaving her to manage much of the fear and risk personally
Q6 What does genocide mean in a legal sense
A Legally genocide is defined by the UN Genocide Convention as acts committed with the intent to destroy in whole or in part a national ethnic racial or religious group Its not just about high death tolls but about proving specific intent to destroy the group
Q7 Is her report an official UN or court ruling
A No As a Special Rapporteur her reports are independent expert assessments They carry significant moral and legal weight and can be used as evidence but they are not a formal verdict from a court like the International Court of Justice which is separately examining a genocide case against Israel
