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UNSG offices shield Israel and blacklist Hamas: EX-UN official

Saturday, 16 August 2025 3:46 PM [ Last Update: Saturday, 16 August 2025 4:06 PM ]

A Palestinian girl transports salvaged items next to destroyed buildings in the al-Tuffah neighborhood of Gaza City on August 14, 2025. (Photo by AFP)

A former senior UN human rights official has criticized offices controlled by the United Nations Secretary-General (UNSG) for their actions in shielding Israel and blacklisting Palestinian resistance movement Hamas during the ongoing genocidal war in the Gaza Strip.

Craig Mokhiber, former director of the New York Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, said in a post on his X account on Saturday that the UNSG offices only report politically convenient issues rather than the reality of abuses committed in Gaza, which he said has led to a lack of accountability.

Mokhiber said there is a need for a more comprehensive and impartial approach to address human rights violations in the besieged Palestinian territory.

He further mentioned his longstanding criticism of the "politicized thematic offices under the UNSG", while highlighting their reporting practices, which differ from the UN’s independent human rights rapporteurs.

For years now, I have criticized the politicized thematic offices under the UNSG that report not on the reality of abuses (as the UN’s independent human rights rapporteurs do) but rather only on that which the UNSG finds politically convenient (often under pressure from powerful…
— Craig Mokhiber (@CraigMokhiber) August 15, 2025

The human rights lawyer went on to say that the failure to effectively address the Israeli regime’s actions in Palestine has highlighted the political corruption that exists within those offices, adding that they are often under pressure from powerful states, particularly in areas such as genocide, sexual violence, and children in conflict.

The former UN official further denounced as “shameful” a recent report issued by a UNSG-controlled office monitoring sexual violence in conflict for creating a new category called “on notice” to avoid blacklisting Israel, despite substantial evidence that exists to condemn the regime.

UN chief Guterres puts Israel ‘on notice’ over sexual violence by military forces

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres has placed Israel “on notice” for possible inclusion in the UN’s “blacklist” of entities and groups suspected of committing sexual violence in armed conflict.

Conversely, the report has blacklisted Hamas, even though there is an acknowledged lack of evidence against the group, he said.

Mokhiber further slammed the double standard of the report for saying that a lack of access to Israel and areas in the Occupied Palestinian Territory had prevented the listing of Israel, while the same reason did not apply to Hamas.

He said these offices "do more harm than good" to the protection of human rights, adding that their dismantling has long been overdue.

Israel launched a genocidal war on Gaza on October 7, 2023, after Hamas carried out the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in response to its intensified campaign of death and devastation against Palestine.

The regime’s bloody onslaught on Gaza has so far killed over 61,776 Palestinians, many of them women and children, while displacing the territory's entire population of nearly two million people.

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