Israeli actress sues UN’s Albanese for comparing her to Nazis

Israeli actress and model Sarai Givaty sues the UN rapporteur for the Palestinians, Francesca Albanese, for a social media post comparing her to Nazis.

Givaty gave an interview in Hebrew in September 2025 about her response to the October 7, 2023, invasion of Israel, urging action to target extremism among Islamists and the Israeli far right.

“It saddens me when any child in the world cries, it truly saddens me, but I also understand that if we do not act, that child will grow up to be a terrorist,” she said.

Last month, Albanese shared the clip, comparing Givaty’s comments to Nazi Persecution.

“‘The children will grow up.’ This was also the argument that Nazi officials gave, during the Nuremberg Trials, to justify why they had killed children during the Holocaust,” Albanese wrote in a post viewed more than 2 million times.

"The children will grow up".

This was also the argument that Nazi officials gave, during the Nuremberg Trials, to justify why they had killed children during the Holocaust. https://t.co/v0HZYbs0sX

— Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt (@FranceskAlbs) September 19, 2026

Other excerpts from the interview, not shared by Albanese, showed that Givaty had made a broader argument against indoctrinating children in extremist ideologies on both sides, and not a call for violence.

Givaty said that, after October, 7, “I understood that there is extremist Islamism here.”

“Our own extremists, we also need to root them out, and that’s really important. What Smotrich and Ben Gvir are doing is anti-Zionist,” she said.

In the interview, when Givaty referred to “children,” she also did not single out Gazan children, but appeared to be referring to children being indoctrinated on both sides of the conflict.

After Albanese’s post, international media reported on her comments.

Givaty says she received death threats and hateful messages, and that Albanese’s post had damaged her employment prospects.

“As a mother, I am appalled by this false comparison. One may disagree with my opinions, but one cannot attribute statements to me that I never made, nor portray me to millions of people as someone who justifies the killing of children,” Givaty says in a statement shared by the Shurat Hadin legal advocacy group, which is assisting her in the lawsuit.

Givaty is suing Albanese in the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court for NIS 500,000 ($160,000).

Albanese has a history of extremist rhetoric and comments that leading Jewish groups deem antisemitic.

Last year, pro-Israel Christian groups in the US sued Albanese for alleged defamation.

Albanese avoided attempts to serve her in that lawsuit and does not appear to have engaged directly with the court proceedings.

She has been banned from entering Israel.