Fifteen months of Israel’s war on Palestinian people – Letter from the State of Palestine (A/ES-10/1019-S/2025/17)

09 January 2025

Identical letters dated 9 January 2025 from the Permanent Observer of the State of Palestine to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General, the President of the General Assembly and the President of the Security Council

It has been 15 months of Israel’s genocidal war on the Palestinian people. As the world continues to look on, failing to stop the Israeli onslaught, we have entered the sixteenth month of this unbridled savagery against a defenceless civilian population under the mercy of this illegal occupation and apartheid regime.

The devastation wrought by Israel on the Gaza Strip is unprecedented and an utter disgrace to the international legal order and any notion of the existence of a collective humanity.

If truly respected and upheld, neither would ever allow the massacre of civilians; the extermination of entire families; the starvation of children; the disfigurement and disabling of tens of thousands of people; the orphaning of thousands of children; the obliteration of homes, schools and hospitals; the mass forced displacement of nearly the entire population; the abduction and torture of thousands of civilians; and the destruction of every component of society and the targeting of all those trying to help them to survive the onslaught, including healthcare workers, rescue workers and humanitarians, 263 of them staff of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).

Israel is blatantly attempting to destroy all that exists in Gaza, to destroy the international legal order and to destroy our collective humanity. It must be stopped.

A world in which the Security Council was functional, living up to its duty under the Charter of the United Nations to maintain international peace and security and its responsibilities to protect civilians and to prohibit aggression and the acquisition of territory by force, would not allow this to happen and let the perpetrators go unpunished.

A world in which the High Contracting Parties to the Geneva Conventions upheld their obligations would not allow this to happen and would have long ago undertaken measures, including penal sanctions, in the case of such grave breaches to ensure respect of the Conventions in all circumstances, including, inter alia, the halt to all transfer of arms and munitions to the occupying Power.

No exceptions, no empty pretexts, no misinformation and no offensive justifications by Israel or those complicit in its crimes would be tolerated. International law would be upheld, not just in words, but in deeds. Provisional measures orders and advisory rulings by the International Court of Justice would be respected. International Criminal Court arrest warrants would be upheld. United Nations resolutions would be implemented. Our collective humanity would be preserved.

The international community must no longer equivocate, hesitate or delay. There must be swift action to put a stop to this inhumanity and hold Israel, the occupying Power, accountable for all of its crimes, including all acts of genocide.

The failure to act has allowed the Israeli occupying forces to continue committing daily massacres for the past 15 months, including at least 49 Palestinians killed within 24 hours from 5 to 6 January. The toll is now estimated at 155,000 Palestinian casualties since October 2023. According to the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, as at 8 January, 45,936 Palestinians have been killed and 109,274 have been injured in Israeli occupying forces attacks in Gaza. Women and children continue to represent the majority of victims in this shocking casualty toll.

Attacks by the Israeli occupying forces and extremist settlers in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, also continue to claim lives, including of children, with the death toll surpassing 840 Palestinians, in addition to the terror and illegal measures that have forcibly displaced over 4,250 civilians in just the past year.

It bears reiteration: Israel has killed, wounded or rendered missing at least 10 per cent of Gaza’s population, and the toll regularly cited is a likely underestimate, as thousands of men, women and children are still unaccounted for under the rubble, unable to be saved due to Israel’s relentless barrage of bombs, missiles and gunfire, even on rescue workers, and the lack of the necessary machinery for rescue and recovery.

A recent interview in The New York Times with Palestinian rescue workers, who, for the past 15 months, have faced the mass devastation inflicted by Israel with nothing but their bare hands or the most rudimentary tools to try to save people from flattened buildings bombed by the Israeli occupying forces, revealed the extent of this horror, with one first responder stating: “We hear the voices of the people under the rubble. Imagine there are people under the rubble who we know are alive, but we can’t save them. We have to leave them to die.”

Countless other Palestinian civilians have died of diseases for which there is no medicine or treatment available in Gaza and are dying of malnutrition, dehydration, starvation and hypothermia. In an attempt to convey the gravity of this appalling situation, the UNRWA Senior Emergency Officer, Louise Wateridge, recently stressed: “We’ve watched for months on end as children go through piles of trash to try and find their next meal. It’s absolutely inhumane the conditions that are being forced here because of the Israeli imposed siege …. In the besieged north, it’s nothing but horror stories”.

In this regard, the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Tom Fletcher, issued a statement on 6 January stating, inter alia: “The reality is that despite our determination to deliver food, water and medicine to survivors, our efforts to save lives are at a breaking point … . Statements by Israeli authorities vilify our aid workers even as the military attacks them. Community volunteers who accompany our convoys are being targeted. There is now a perception that it is dangerous to protect aid convoys but safe to loot them.”

How can the international community remain idle in the face of such atrocities and man-made humanitarian catastrophe? How can anyone justify this abhorrent situation and such depravity?

This genocide cannot be allowed to continue another day. Not one more massacre, not one more hospital attacked, not one more refugee camp destroyed, not one more safe zone bombed, not one more baby left to freeze to death, not one more child left hungry, not one more family annihilated, not one more doctor or humanitarian murdered and not one more civilian abducted.

Israel must be stopped from sowing more death, destruction and deprivation. The international community must demand that Israel immediately halt its military onslaught on the Palestinian people, including its assaults on humanitarian workers, medical personnel and journalists. Moreover, it must demand that Israel cease its attacks on the United Nations, its incitement against and ban on UNRWA and its attacks on humanitarian convoys – most recently, on 5 January, on a clearly marked World Food Programme convoy attempting to deliver food provisions – and stop enabling the looting of humanitarian aid and the sowing of chaos and disorder.

Immediate political, legal and humanitarian action must be taken by the international community, foremost by the Security Council, to impose an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire; to allow for the hostage-prisoner exchange; to save the millions of Palestinian civilian lives at risk, including by securing the immediate, unfettered provision of humanitarian aid at scale that is indispensable for their survival, foremost through UNRWA, to all civilians in need in all parts of Gaza and the rest of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem; and to ensure protection for the Palestinian people.

There can be no more delays in the face of Israel’s flagrant impunity and ongoing threats to carry on with its grave breaches of international law and systematic human rights violations against our people. All relevant United Nations resolutions must be implemented forthwith, including, inter alia, Security Council resolution 2735 (2024) and General Assembly resolution ES-10/26 of 11 December 2024. The binding provisional measures orders of the International Court of Justice of January, March and May 2024 must be implemented immediately and the advisory opinion of the Court of 19 July 2024 must be respected forthwith. Israel cannot remain a State above the law.

It is long past time for sanctions and for independent, transparent, international investigations to ensure full accountability, including full reparations, for all the war crimes, crimes against humanity and acts of genocide perpetrated by Israel against our people and for all the loss, suffering and trauma they have endured.

It is long past time for the Palestinian people to finally be liberated from this illegal, abhorrent, colonial occupation and apartheid regime and to finally realize their inalienable rights to return and to self-determination and the independence of the State of Palestine, with East Jerusalem as its capital, in accordance with international law and in implementation of the relevant United Nations resolutions. This is the only path to peace and security for Palestinians, Israelis and for our region.

The present letter is in follow-up to our 854 letters on the ongoing crisis in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, which constitutes the territory of the State of Palestine. These letters, dated from 29 September 2000 (A/55/432-S/2000/921) to 30 December 2024 (A/ES-10/1018-S/2024/1000), constitute a basic record of the crimes being committed by Israel, the occupying Power, against the Palestinian people since September 2000. For all of these war crimes, acts of State terrorism and systematic human rights violations against our people, Israel, the occupying Power, must be held accountable and the perpetrators must be brought to justice. This illegal colonial occupation and apartheid regime must end now.

I should be grateful if you would arrange to have the present letter distributed as a document of the tenth emergency special session of the General Assembly, under agenda item 5, and of the Security Council.

(Signed) Riyad Mansour

Minister

Permanent Observer