Continued struggle for Palestinian lives, demands for an immediate intervention from international community – Letter from the State of Palestine (A/ES-10/1021-S/2025/77)

03 February 2025

Identical letters dated 3 February 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

Israel, the occupying Power, is addicted to murder and destruction. Immediately after the ceasefire agreement for Gaza, following 470 days of massacres and mass devastation wrought by the Israeli occupying forces, it launched a full-scale military operation across the rest of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, violently besieging and attacking villages, towns, cities and refugee camps and escalating its repression and apartheid policies against the Palestinian civilian population.

Now, as Palestinian civilians who survived Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza struggle to cope and recover from the unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe, deprivation, starvation and ruin inflicted on them, Palestinian civilians in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, have come under direct assault, targeted by the Israeli occupying forces and fanatic settlers, who do not hide their intentions to spill Palestinian blood, to terrorize and to ethnically cleanse the Occupied Palestinian Territory of its indigenous Palestinian inhabitants.

Since my previous letter, Israeli occupying forces have intensified military raids, and settler attacks are on the rise. More civilians have been killed, more homes and civilian infrastructure have been destroyed, more Palestinian families have been forcibly displaced and more civilians have been abducted and detained. Israel’s assaults have been most fierce in the northern West Bank, in and around Jenin and its refugee camp and in Tulkarm, Tubas and other villages and towns in the area, but raids also continue to be carried out across the entire territory.

In just two examples, Israel launched air strikes on the village of Tammun last week, killing at least 10 Palestinian civilians. In an Israeli invasion of the village of Muthallath al-Shuhada near Jenin, among the victims was a two-year-old girl, Laila Al-Khatib, who was shot and killed by Israeli soldiers as she and her mother hid in the bedroom of their home during the raid. Over the past two weeks, 29 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli air strikes, artillery and gunfire and hundreds have been wounded. Since the beginning of the year, Israeli occupying forces have murdered at least 53 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. The victims include many children.

The destruction being caused by Israeli occupying forces to homes, hospitals, roads and other vital civilian infrastructure resembles the massive destruction inflicted by Israel on Gaza. Yesterday, Israel destroyed at least 20 homes in Jenin city, blowing them up simultaneously, rendering hundreds homeless. In many places, life has been completely paralysed, with schools and businesses closed, hospitals under siege, ambulances obstructed from aiding the wounded and civilians fearing to leave their homes, terrified of coming under Israeli attack.

In the past two weeks, hundreds of Palestinian families have already been displaced, with an estimated 15,000 people impacted by the most recent Israeli attacks and the widespread destruction caused. In this regard, as reported by the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, nearly all 20,000 residents of the Jenin refugee camp have been displaced over the past two months and at least 150 to 180 homes have sustained severe damage, and 1,000 other civilians have been displaced in Tulkarm alone. Thousands have been left without electricity, water and sanitation services and thousands are besieged in their homes, deprived of access to food, schools, healthcare and livelihoods. Humanitarian conditions are dire and worsening by the day.

In fact, Israeli politicians and extremist settler leaders are openly threatening to replicate Israel’s destructive, genocidal war on Gaza in the West Bank and are likewise openly vowing to expel Palestinians from their land, shamelessly boasting about their illegal colonial annexation schemes.

Such threats are coming from the highest levels of the Israeli government, with members of the Prime Minister’s cabinet leading the charge and actually basing their participation in the coalition on promises of more war to be waged on the Palestinian people. No sooner had the ink dried on the ceasefire agreement than the extremists in the Israeli government began demanding the resumption of the slaughter campaign in Gaza, with demands to finish off and annihilate our people and to seize and settle the territory.

The risks in this regard are immense and the fragile ceasefire is being undermined every day by Israel’s illegal actions and provocations, as witnessed in its escalating aggression against our people in the West Bank. In addition to the widespread military attacks, this has included other punitive and discriminatory measures against the population, including the installation of iron gates at the entrances of numerous villages and towns, imprisoning our citizens and isolating them from one another, forcing hundreds of Palestinian civilians to “evacuate” their homes, bulldozing and bombing homes to ruin and the seizing of more Palestinian properties and land, with ongoing declarations of settlement expansion plans.

Israel’s closure of the compound of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East in occupied East Jerusalem on 30 January is yet another manifestation of this mounting aggression and its relentless land grabs and annexation schemes. Such criminal actions continue to be taken under one guise or another, all in breach of the Charter of the United Nations, countless other rules of international law, including the Fourth Geneva Convention, and United Nations resolutions, and in disrespect of International Court of Justice rulings.

As the number of victims of Israel’s savagery across Occupied Palestine continues to rise, we appeal once again to the international community to act now to uphold international law, to act now to stop the perpetration of these crimes against the Palestinian people and to act now to bring an end to this vicious, illegal occupation once and for all. The Security Council in particular has a duty to act forthwith. As stated by the World Health Organization, “Ceasefire in one area should not be at the expense of escalating violence in another”.

With the casualty toll in Gaza now estimated to have reached 61,709 Palestinians murdered by Israel – 47,487 of whom have been accounted for in hospitals and 14,222 of whom remain unaccounted for under the rubble or unidentifiable, with bodies exhumed from the ruins every day – and more than 111,588 wounded, many struggling with life-threatening injuries, and with the casualty toll in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, surpassing 905 Palestinians killed by Israeli occupying forces and settlers and over 7,400 injured, it is more urgent than ever to avert further loss of life, trauma and devastation and to stem the human suffering.

The Palestinian leadership therefore reiterates its abiding call on the Security Council to act swiftly to protect the Palestinian people and hold Israel accountable in order to bring its crimes to a complete halt, including an immediate end to this aggression in the West Bank and the immediate withdrawal of the Israeli occupying forces from our cities, towns, villages and refugee camps. This is of utmost urgency to save human lives and to salvage the fleeting prospects for a just and lasting peace.

The present letter is in follow-up to our 856 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 24 January 2025 (A/ES-10/1020-S/2025/56), 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