Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, attends a side event during the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, March 26, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Denis Balibouse

A United Nations official who has been criticized for using her role to denigrate Israel spoke at the same event in Qatar over the weekend as a senior Hamas official and Iran’s top diplomat.

The Al Jazeera Forum featured speakers including Khaled Meshaal, a former leader of Hamas and current senior figure in the Palestinian terrorist group; Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araqchi; and Francesca Albanese — the UN’s notoriously controversial special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the Palestinian territories.

Writer and open-source intelligence researcher Eitan Fischberger noted days before the event that Albanese, whose job centers around human rights, would be speaking at the same gathering as two men instrumental in egregious human rights abuses.

Hamas, an internationally designated terrorist group, perpetrated the biggest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust when it killed 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 hostages during its invasion of southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

The Iranian regime, which has backed Hamas for years, killed tens of thousands of its own people last month during a bloody crackdown on anti-government protesters.

Albanese was not the only speaker whose professional focus was on human rights but ended up speaking at a conference with some of the world’s most notable human rights abusers. According to the Al Jazeera Forum website, a former prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), a professor of international law, and a humanitarian and climate activist also spoke at the event. Additionally, at least one American professor — who teaches at the University of Maryland, College Park — spoke at the forum.

During Albanese’s speech, she discussed Israel being a “common enemy of humanity.”

Humanity has a “common enemy” in Israel, Francesca Albanese tells Qatar’s Al Jazeera forum pic.twitter.com/l1wXNiS7yP

— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) February 8, 2026

The Anti-Defamation League responded to her appearance at the forum, posting on social media: “When will the world stop allowing Albanese to dress up hateful bias against Jews, Israel and endorsement of terrorism, as righteous indignation? ADL has long been calling for Albanese to be found in breach of the UNHRC code of conduct and to be separated from her mandate.”

The director of the Digital Diplomacy Bureau at the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs added that “the mask is finally off” and that there is “no need for satire – reality writes it better.”

Albanese’s appearance at the conference marked the latest chapter of her extensive history of using her role at the UN to attack Israel and seemingly rationalize Hamas’s attacks on the Jewish state.

In 2024, the UN launched a probe into Albanese’s conduct over allegedly accepting a trip to Australia funded by pro-Hamas organizations. UN Watch explained in its own research that in November 2023, Albanese “conducted a lobbying trip to Australia and New Zealand in which she did not conduct any investigation pursuant to her mandate. Contrary to her denials and those by the UN, this report documents how the trip was partially funded by ‘external’ groups, most likely pro-Hamas lobby groups in those countries.”

Also in 2024, Albanese claimed Israelis were “colonialists” who had “fake identities.” Previously, she defended Palestinians’ “right to resist” Israeli “occupation” at a time when over 1,100 rockets were fired by Gaza terrorists at Israel.

US lawmakers previously called for the firing of Albanese for what they described as her “outrageous” antisemitic statements, including a 2014 letter in which she claimed America was “subjugated by the Jewish lobby.”

Albanese’s anti-Israel comments have earned her the praise of Hamas officials in the past.

In response to French President Emmanuel Macron calling Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel the “largest antisemitic massacre of the 21st century,” Albanese said, “No, Mr. Macron. The victims of Oct. 7 were not killed because of their Judaism, but in response to Israel’s oppression.”

Video footage of the Oct. 7 onslaught showed Palestinian terrorists led by Hamas celebrating the fact that they were murdering Jews.

Nevertheless, Albanese has argued that Israel should make peace with Hamas, saying that it “needs to make peace with Hamas in order to not be threatened by Hamas.”

When asked what people do not understand about Hamas, she added, “If someone violates your right to self-determination, you are entitled to embrace resistance.”