In May 2022, the Italian lawyer and academic Francesca Albanese became the first woman to assume the role of UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories. At the time she couldn’t have predicted how events in the fall of 2023, about 18 months into her tenure, would transform the lives of millions of Palestinians and Israelis, and thrust her into the global spotlight.

Hamas’ deadly attack on Israel, on October 7th , 2023, killed 1200 people including over 600 civilians and 39 children. Israel’s subsequent attacks on Gaza have now killed over 50,000 people, including over 14,500 children according to UNICEF, displaced millions and flattened much of the territory.

Francesca Albanese has become a polarizing global personality due to her forceful and unrelenting defense of the rights of Palestinians and her equally powerful condemnation of Israel’s protracted assault on the Palestinian people.

Albanese has consistently called Israel’s actions in Gaza genocide. And has demanded that the world stop the carnage.

As a UN Special Rapporteur, Francesca Albanese travels the world giving interviews, delivering speeches and filing extensive reports. Her job is high profile, stressful and comes with enormous responsibility, and considerable risk. It’s also unpaid. Francesca Albanese is effectively a devoted volunteer who enthusiastically gives of her free labour. The job of Special Rapporteur consumes her. But she thinks the sacrifice is worth it. Despite facing intense opposition from the United States, Canada, Israel, France and Germany, in April 2025 Francesca Albanese was reappointed by the UN’s Human Rights Council to a three- year term as the UN’s Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian Territories. It means she will be in the position until 2028.

In November 2024 Francesca Albanese came to Canada and it is then that I had a chance to sit down with her when she paid a visit to our studio in Ottawa. What followed was a wide-ranging conversation about the plight of the Palestinian people, the horrors that the world has been witnessing in Gaza, allegations that she is anti-Semitic and her own personal journey.