MADRID, 09 May. - (ANA) - Spain's Prime Minister awarded the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Palestine with its highest civilian honour on Thursday for her work documenting atrocities in the Gaza Strip.

 

Francesca Albanese was awarded the Order of Civil Merit, an honour conferred on Spanish and foreign nationals for exceptional services benefiting the state or society, by Pedro Sánchez in a ceremony in Madrid.

 

Sanchez praised the UN expert as "a voice that upholds the conscience of the world".

 

"It is an honour to award the Order of Civil Merit to a voice that upholds the conscience of the world: Francesca Albanese, United Nations Special Rapporteur in the Occupied Palestinian Territory," Sanchez wrote on X.

 

"Public responsibility also entails the moral obligation not to look the other way."

 

Albanese and Sanchez also discussed the war on Gaza, which has killed over 70,000 Palestinians since October 2023, the importance of international law and "the need for an immediate end to the violence and the building of a lasting peace based on dignity and humanity".

 

This comes as the Prime Minister also sent a letter to the European Commission on Tuesday, calling for the activation of the EU's Blocking Statute to counteract the US sanctions imposed on Albanese and her engagement with the International Criminal Court.

 

The sanctions prevent her from travelling to the US and have frozen her assets there.

 

The Trump administration imposed financial and visa sanctions on Albanese in July over her work covering Israeli abuses in Palestine, a move that UN and human rights officials condemned.

 

The president, who has been a strong supporter of a Palestinian state, argued the sanctions “represent a very worrying precedent that compromises the independent workings of institutions that are essential to international justice".

 

Albanese, who has been known for her fierce condemnation of Israel over its genocidal war on Gaza, has repeatedly faced international backlash over her work, including calls for resignation and allegations of antisemitism.

 

Since the outbreak of Israel's genocidal war, Albanese published four reports exposing Israeli atrocities and denouncing the systems that have enabled Israel's war.  - (ANA) -

 

AB/ANA/09 May 2026 - - -