The Project Waleed Aly’s big question to UN expert on Gaza hospital seige

The Project star Waleed Aly grilled a UN expert on Tuesday following her recent controversial comments about Israel.

A UN human rughts expert appeared on The Project on Tuesday night where she faced a grilling from Waleed Aly over the Israel and Palestinian conflict.

Francesca Albanese, who is a lawyer and a special rapporteur - meaning independent expert - on Palestine, has sparked controversy for view of Israel’s actions in the past week.

Waleed Aly grilled the expert on how the UN would have dealt with the war. Picture from Channel 10.

The Israeli military says it has discovered a Hamas lair in the basement of Gaza City’s main hospital, Al-Shifa, and have since started a targeted operation at the site.

But doctors and chief medical staff at the hospital deny the claims and have shown plans they say proves there’s no underground Hamas HQ.

There are concerns about the already dire humanitarian situation at the hospital deteriorating further.

While discussing the latest events with The Project panel, Ms Albanese was questioned by Aly as to how she believed the current conflict should have been dealt with by Israel.

“Israel was always going to respond to the attacks of October 7. In your view, what would the correct response have looked like?”, he asked.

The expert then appeared to surprise Aly with her suggestion that it should have fallen at the feet of the UN to enter Gaza to “demilitarise” Hamas, not Israel.

“It could have relied on the United Nations to demilitarise Hamas if it was the target,” she insisted. “They’ve claimed the right to self-defence and Article 51. We are talking of the people that Israel occupies and it has occupied for 56 years now.”

Waleed interjected, and questioned the expert on her comments.

The UN expert appeared on The Project to discuss the ongoing conflict. Picture from Channel 10.

He asked: “To be clear, are you saying Israel should have asked the United Nations to send in its own force to demilitarise Gaza and to remove the military capacity from Hamas and that the United Nations would have undertaken that task?”

“Well, look, there have been other cases including in Europe,” she explained. “I cite the case of the Bataclan. That was the greatest attack since the Second World War. At the emanated from a terrorist group in Belgium. Has France resorted to bomb entire civilian neighbourhoods in Belgium? No.”

Israel has been widely condemned for its heavy retaliation on Hamas after the attack on October 7. @FranceskAlbs what an appropriate response would have looked like. pic.twitter.com/dZLwXy2k4F

— The Project (@theprojecttv) November 15, 2023

She continued: “I mean, you have a legitimate question, would the United Nations have agreed? The thing, it has never been asked, but it would have because it is a UN responsibility to ensure the maintenance of peace and security and the UN also disposes of peacekeeping operations which people like me have been asked for decades now.”

The lawyer went on to condemn the attack by Hamas on October 7th, but remarked that the horrific incident was entirely “preventable” had the “international community” held Israel to task regarding its “violations of international law”.

“The attack of 7 October, tragic, which has entailed war crimes from Hamas against Israeli civilians. This was preventable. It could have been prevented,” added Albanese. It should have been prevented and it didn’t happen and also because of the attitude of the international community which has left carte blanche to Israel to continue its violations of international law against the Palestinian people.”