PARIS: More than 150 European ex-diplomats and lawmakers on Wednesday urged France’s foreign minister to retract “inaccurate” comments about a UN expert on Palestinians rights who he wants to resign.
France and Germany have called for Francesca Albanese to step down over remarks in which she referred to a “common enemy of humanity” after criticizing “most of the world” and the media for enabling Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza.
Critics and Israel have accused the UN Special Rapporteur of referring to Israel as a “common enemy,” while Albanese has denounced this as a “manipulation” and “completely false.”
In response to a question about the comments, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot on February 11 told parliament she should step down.
In an open letter sent to AFP, the former diplomats criticized what they called “the use of inaccurate and manipulated elements to discredit a holder of an independent UN mandate.”
They called on Barrot to “retract his inaccurate statements about Ms Albanese and correct them.”
“This controversy must not divert attention from the massacres of civilians, nor from the humanitarian crisis and the massive human rights violations taking place in Gaza,” said the signatories.
The letter, written in French, was signed by mostly former foreign ministers and diplomats from the Netherlands.
More than a dozen current members of parliament and senators from Europe were also among the signatories, along with a former foreign minister of South Africa.
Albanese had spoken via videoconference at a forum in Doha on February 7 organized by the Al Jazeera network.
“The fact that instead of stopping Israel, most of the world has armed, given Israel political excuses, political sheltering, economic and financial support — this is a challenge,” she had said.
Albanese said that “international law has been stabbed in the heart” but added that there is an opportunity since “we now see that we as a humanity have a common enemy.”
Ex-diplomats defend UN Palestinians expert Francesca Albanese against France FM
https://arab.news/2m5qu
Ex-diplomats defend UN Palestinians expert Francesca Albanese against France FM
- More than 150 European ex-diplomats and lawmakers urge Jean-Noel Barrot to retract ‘inaccurate’ comments about Albanese
- UN expert says claims she referred to Israel as a “common enemy” are completely false
Gazans salvage ancient books in mosque library damaged by war
- The Great Omari Mosque library sustained terrible damaged during the war in Gaza
- The mosque now stands largely ruined, with its library littered with rubble and dust
GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: Inside the dusty shell of one of the oldest libraries in the Palestinian territories, a group of Gazan volunteers work diligently to salvage what remains of their ancient cultural heritage.
The Great Omari Mosque library sustained terrible damaged during the war in Gaza, which erupted in October 2023 and devastated swathes of the Palestinian territory, including cultural and religious sites.
The mosque — in the old town of Gaza City — now stands largely ruined, with its library littered with rubble and dust.
“I was shocked and stunned when I saw the extent of the destruction in the library,” Haneen Al-Amsi told AFP, saying the scenes of devastation had spurred her to help launch the restoration initiative.
Amsi, who heads the Eyes on Heritage Volunteer Foundation, said the western part of the library was burned when the mosque was hit, causing irreversible damage.
“The library was estimated to contain about 20,000 books, but currently we are left with fewer than 3,000 or 4,000,” she explained.
Among the debris, volunteers hoping to restore the collection pored over charred fragments of manuscript and shards of yellowed paper.
“The library of the Great Omari Mosque is considered the third largest library in Palestine after the Al-Aqsa Mosque library and the Ahmed Pasha Al-Jazzar library,” Amsi said.
“It is an important historical library that contains original manuscripts and a diverse collection of books on jurisprudence, medicine, Islamic law, literature and various other subjects.”
Gaza’s history stretches back thousands of years, making the tiny territory a treasure trove of archaeological artefacts from past civilizations including Canaanites, Egyptians, Persians and Greeks.
But more than two years of war between Israel and Hamas took a heavy toll on Gaza’s heritage sites.
As of January 2026, the UN’s cultural agency UNESCO, had verified damage to 150 sites since the start of the war on October 7, 2023 sparked by Hamas’s attack on Israel.
These include 14 religious sites and 115 buildings of historical or artistic interest.
- ‘Represent history’ -
Inside one of the library’s old stone rooms, one woman used a paintbrush to dust off an old tome, while other volunteers wearing facemasks and gloves crouched on the floor to leaf through piles of books.
“The condition of the rare and historical books is deplorable due to their being left for more than 700 to 800 days,” Amsi said, talking of “immense damage and gunpowder residue” on the volumes.
An independent United Nations commission said in June 2025 that Israeli attacks on schools, religious and cultural sites in Gaza amounted to war crimes.
“Israel has obliterated Gaza’s education system and destroyed more than half of all religious and cultural sites in the Gaza Strip,” the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory said in a report.
Israel rejected the commission as “an inherently biased and politicized mechanism of the Human Rights Council” and said the report was “another attempt to promote its fictitious narrative of the Gaza war.”
For Amsi, the importance of restoring the books lay in preserving crucial historic records.
“These books represent the history of the city and bear witness to historical events,” she said.
