Bombing of Aid Convoy in Gaza – Letter from Palestine (A/ES-10/985-S/2024/202)

29 February 2024

Identical letters dated 29 February 2024 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’s massacres continue unabated and its genocidal war is killing the Palestinian people by starvation and dehydration, by shelling and bombing, by disease and malnutrition. Today is another day of hell in the Gaza Strip as Israel, in a new massacre, deliberately and systematically targeted a humanitarian convoy and killed over 100 and injured over 750 hungry Palestinians, men, women and children, as they were collecting long-overdue food aid, which constitutes another war crime committed by Israel, the occupying Power, while it continues to be treated as a State above the law, evading any accountability for its endless list of crimes against the Palestinian people.

Israel is massacring people who are starved, besieged and bombed into submission, in the most brutal and savage of ways. Today’s “flour massacre” was enabled by the paralysis of the Security Council and the veto rendered by a permanent member of the Security Council, which in effect gave a green light to Israel to continue with its genocidal war, with full impunity.

An entire population has been stripped of its dignity and means of survival, rendered completely dependent on humanitarian aid, which is tragically not reaching them. Palestinian children, women and men are being left to starve, wasting away, as a result of Israel’s calculated, sinister decisions to lay a complete siege to Gaza atop 17 years of blockade and its savage military aggression.

After the bombing by Israel of nearly every bakery and farm, destroying livestock and all means of food production, and its closure of nearly all crossing points while allowing a drip of aid into Gaza, many families had to resort to extreme measures through using animal fodder and bird feed baked into their bread, which resulted in medical problems, particularly in young children.

Amid the growing of this man-made starvation, there are reports about six children who died in north Gaza from dehydration and malnutrition at Kamal Adwan and al-Shifa hospitals, while others are in critical condition. The casualty toll inflicted by Israel in Gaza is now more than 30,000 Palestinian children, women, men, youth and elderly persons massacred, as well as medics, humanitarian personnel and journalists, and more than 70,400 people have been injured in Israeli attacks on Gaza since 7 October.

There is no legitimate justification that can be offered by Security Council members for failing their duties in the face of Israel’s slaughter of children, women and men and infliction of a humanitarian catastrophe unparalleled in this century. Excuses, cynical pretexts and empty calls on Israel, the occupying Power, to respect international law while actually permitting and enabling it to continue its wanton attacks on civilian areas and starvation of the population are the height of hypocrisy, negligence and complicity.

The demand for an immediate ceasefire, at a minimum on humanitarian grounds, is the least the Council can do after over four months of allowing Israel to commit this carnage, in grave breach of every international legal norm, standard and principle and any sense of morality. The Council cannot continue to shirk its responsibility to halt this deadly onslaught and protect the civilian lives that are in danger. It cannot allow international peace and security to be threatened at will by Israel, allowing it to behave as a rogue State, shielded from accountability for its crimes. We reiterate once again that only swift action can prevent further deterioration with grave reverberations.

Against this backdrop, and while we condemn this massacre, we demand that the Security Council and all States immediately act to uphold their responsibilities, before human life in Gaza is further devastated and before international law is further shredded and rendered obsolete. We appeal for action to protect the Palestinian people from Israel’s genocidal onslaught and never-ending attempts to ethnically cleanse them and colonize their land.

Israel cannot continue to evade accountability for its crimes, cannot continue to be permitted to act as a State above all norms and rules, trampling the law and undermining it for one and all, with far-reaching implications for the global order. It is long past time for a ceasefire, to save civilian lives and to enable and ensure the implementation of the provisional measures indicated by the International Court of Justice. The international community must act with all seriousness and speed to make this possible, in the interest of the Palestinian people, the Israeli people and regional and international peace and security, which are being gravely threatened by Israel’s criminal aggression and the consequent tensions and violence across the region.

The present letter is in follow-up to our 828 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 12 February 2024 (A/ES-10/984-S/2024/162), 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.

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