Ceasefire must be sustained, permanent and extended to the entirety of Occupied Palestine – Letter from the State of Palestine (A/ES-10/1020-S/2025/56)

24 January 2025

Identical letters dated 24 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

After 470 days of slaughter, destruction and terror waged by Israel, the occupying Power, against the Palestinian civilian population in the Gaza Strip, we are relieved by the ceasefire agreement concluded on 15 January. The agreement’s entry into force on 19 January has brought the long-overdue cessation of Israel’s military attacks in Gaza, the exchange of hostages and prisoners and the start of the distribution of desperately needed humanitarian aid to civilians struggling to survive after 15 months of unprecedented deprivation of food, water, medical care and all essentials of life under Israel’s genocidal siege and onslaught.

We commend the diplomatic work of Qatar, Egypt and the United States in mediating the ceasefire and urge all efforts to ensure full implementation in all three phases and to transform it into a permanent ceasefire in line with Security Council resolution 2735 (2024). The Council must act forthwith to ensure compliance with all of its resolutions and to sustain this fragile ceasefire.

We deplore the fact that, despite the conclusion of the ceasefire agreement on 15 January, Israel continued its attacks on our people in Gaza, exploiting the days prior to the ceasefire’s entry into force to kill more Palestinian civilians and to wreak more death and ruin on our already devastated, depleted and grieving population.

In the first 24 hours after the announcement of the ceasefire by the Prime Minister of Qatar, Israeli occupying forces launched at least 50 air strikes targeting homes and displaced families in shelters and tent camps, massacring 71 more Palestinians, the majority of them women and children. By the time the ceasefire came into effect, Israeli occupying forces had killed at least 268 Palestinians and injured 738 others. Also, from 20 to 22 January, 65 more Palestinians died, mostly from attacks prior to the ceasefire, and, as families return to their destroyed homes and recovery efforts are underway, 183 bodies have been retrieved thus far from under the rubble.

The casualty toll inflicted by Israel on Gaza from 8 October 2023 to 22 January 2025 now tragically stands at 47,161 Palestinian men, women and children killed and 111,166 injured. Many more lives remain at risk as a result of malnutrition, disease and wound infections among the population, and thousands more are still missing under the rubble or in the occupier’s captivity, their welfare and fate unknown.

There must be accountability for the massacres perpetrated and all the harm done by Israel to our people. There must be independent international investigations, and all the perpetrators of these war crimes, crimes against humanity and acts of genocide against the Palestinian people must be held accountable.

In the immediate term, we stress the need to sustain rapid, unfettered humanitarian access to Gaza to enable the massive delivery of food, water, medicine and all other essential supplies, including for shelter, needed to alleviate this humanitarian catastrophe. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) must be allowed to continue its lifesaving operations in Gaza and the rest of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem. The Agency is already moving swiftly to mobilize the delivery of supplies to the population throughout north, central and southern Gaza, alongside other United Nations agencies and humanitarian organizations in Gaza, relying on the dedication of its staff, and with its unparalleled capacities and the support of donor countries.

The Agency’s mandate must be protected from Israel’s punitive measures. It must be clear to all that a sustained ceasefire and genuine recovery in Gaza will be severely undermined and thwarted if Israel’s ban on UNRWA is implemented. As stated by the Secretary-General in his response to the General Assembly on the implementation of its resolution ES-10/26, “UNRWA provides irreplaceable services – from protection and education to healthcare – to millions of Palestinians” and provides “essential logistical and infrastructural support to the entire humanitarian system. Without UNRWA, the humanitarian response would risk collapse, further compounding the already catastrophic situation experienced by civilians in Gaza.”

Furthermore, as stressed by The Elders in a statement today: “UN Member States have a duty to defend UNRWA against this serious attack, which violates the UN Charter. A mandate given by the General Assembly … cannot be revoked by a national parliament … Member States should impose targeted sanctions if the Israeli government implements the legislation, given it constitutes a clear violation of international law with grave consequences.”

In this regard, we also recall the binding provisional measures ordered by the International Court of Justice on 26 January, 28 March and 24 May 2024 regarding the dire humanitarian conditions in Gaza and the duty to prevent genocide.

We appeal for vigilance and immediate action, in line with obligations under international law, including humanitarian and human rights law, and underscore the ongoing threats as expressed by, inter alia, the Israeli Prime Minister, who is vowing to resume the onslaught on our people in Gaza, and the Israeli Finance Minister, who has declared that Israel intends “to take over Gaza, making it uninhabitable” for the Palestinian people. There must be action to stop Israel’s ethnic cleansing and genocide against our people.

In this regard, we must alert the international community to Israel’s escalating assaults on the Palestinian civilian population in the rest of the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Its occupying forces, including terrorist settler militias, are running rampant across the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, killing, injuring, destroying, displacing and tormenting our people. As is apparent in the pledges of Israeli government ministers and the actions of the Israeli occupying forces, Israel’s ethnic cleansing and annexation plans continue unabated.

Since the start of the year, the Israeli occupying forces have killed 34 Palestinians, including 6 children, in the West Bank and have injured hundreds. This includes 12 Palestinians killed and over 50 injured in Jenin and its refugee camp in a siege by the Israeli occupying forces of the area since 21 January. There, Israel’s actions mirror its brutality in Gaza, as it is attacking the area with helicopters, air strikes and ground operations, surrounding the Jenin Government Hospital, destroying the roads leading to it, obstructing ambulances and besieging medical personnel and the 600 patients and civilians sheltering in the hospital. As documented by the World Health Organization, from October 2023 to December 2024, Israel committed 694 attacks on healthcare in the West Bank, affecting 62 medical facilities and 475 ambulances.

On top of daily military raids on Palestinian villages, towns and refugee camps and constant provocations and incitement against the Palestinian civilian population and holy sites in occupied East Jerusalem, hundreds of Israeli settlers have descended on Qalqilyah villages, Nablus villages, including Huwwarah, which had been targeted in the past by a settler pogrom, and other areas, causing injury to dozens of civilians, including a mother and her six children, and setting fire to and damaging homes and vehicles. As reported by the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, since October 2023, Israeli settlers have perpetrated at least 1,800 attacks across the West Bank.

The occupying Power has also tightened already severe movement restrictions on the population, imposing more road closures, delays at checkpoints and installing new gates at village entrances, further caging in the population and preventing access to basic services, including schools, hospitals and workplaces. On 20 January, at checkpoints surrounding Nablus, hundreds of Palestinians were trapped in their cars for up to 10 hours waiting for the Israeli soldiers to allow them to return to their homes or reach their places of work.

Israel also continues to demolish Palestinian homes. More than 50 Palestinians have been forcibly displaced in the past month, including from the Silwan neighbourhood of occupied East Jerusalem. In the recent period, the demolition of other properties, including a grocery shop, a butcher shop, an aluminium factory, a glass-cutting workshop and others, has destroyed the livelihoods of 12 households comprising 58 people, including 26 children.

Moreover, Israel continues its insidious campaign of mass detentions of Palestinian civilians, including children. On 20 January, just a day after the ceasefire came into effect and 90 Palestinian women and children were released, the Israeli occupying forces detained 60 Palestinians in a military raid of the town of Azzun. Dozens more have been seized and detained from across the West Bank in the days since, adding to the over 10,400 Palestinians held captive in Israeli prisons, in addition to thousands more abducted from Gaza and subjected to untold abuse and torture. At least 54 Palestinians have died in Israeli custody since October 2023, and Israel continues to withhold the bodies of over 350 Palestinians, denying them the dignity of proper burial.

We appeal again to the international community to act to halt Israel’s crimes against the Palestinian people. Stop the genocide, stop the ethnic cleansing, stop the colonization, stop the annexation and end this illegal occupation and apartheid regime.

The Security Council, with its primary duty to maintain international peace and security, must act now. We again urge the Council to undertake a mission to the Occupied Palestinian Territory – to the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem – to examine for itself the grave reality and determine immediate steps to preserve the ceasefire, protect the Palestinian people, ensure accountability and chart an irreversible path towards a just and lasting solution and achievement of the two-State solution on the pre-1967 lines in accordance with international law and the relevant United Nations resolutions and International Court of Justice advisory opinions.

Israel must be stopped from sowing more death, destruction and deprivation. The Government of the State of Palestine thus reiterates its calls for independent, international investigations towards ensuring full accountability, including full reparations, for all the crimes perpetrated by Israel against our people.

In this regard, it reiterates its calls for, inter alia, cooperation by States and international organizations with ongoing judicial processes at the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court to uphold international law and accountability. Moreover, it reiterates its call for sanctions, including an arms embargo. As underscored by the Secretary-General, “Member States can and must use their leverage, including through diplomatic and economic pressure, to ensure respect for international humanitarian law.”

Do not allow Israel to repeat the catastrophe it has inflicted on Gaza in the rest of the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Do not forget the millions of people still in need, still grieving, or the immense want of those who have lost absolutely everything or the incalculable human suffering.

Do not forget the 1.9 million internally displaced – 90 per cent of the population – in Gaza, where 92 per cent of housing and 88 per cent of schools have been destroyed or damaged; or the 20 per cent of the population that has been permanently disabled, including thousands of children who have lost one or more limbs; do not forget the over 14,000 critically ill and injured people still requiring medical evacuation; do not forget the starvation that has ravaged our people; do not forget the thousands of children left without parents; do not forget the parents grieving their children after more than 35 children were killed daily in Gaza by the Israeli occupying forces since October 2023; do not forget all the families annihilated; do not forget our prisoners and detainees; do not forget the thousands left without livelihoods and forced into poverty; do not forget the humanitarians killed, 272 of them UNRWA staff, the doctors and other healthcare workers, the journalists and all who have served our people with dignity and commitment throughout this ordeal.

The ceasefire must be sustained, must become permanent and must be extended to the entirety of Occupied Palestine. It must become the beginning of the end of this illegal colonial occupation.

We appeal to the international community to put an end to these atrocities and end this colossal suffering. Give hope and sustenance to the Palestinian people. Uphold the political, legal and moral obligations and commitments to end this grave injustice and ongoing Nakba on our people and open a new era of peace and security in Palestine, in Israel, in our region and our world.

The present letter is in follow-up to our 855 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 9 January 2025 (A/ES-10/1019-S/2025/17), 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