Nine months into the siege on Gaza: Nearly the entire population displaced – Letter from the State of Palestine (A/ES-10/1001-S/2024/533)

08 July 2024

Identical letters dated 8 July 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

It has been nine months since Israel launched its genocidal siege and war on Gaza, and there have been nine months of military assaults on a civilian population held captive under a 57-year illegal, foreign occupation that has systematically breached every single law of war, every human right and every moral principle known to humankind.

Palestinian children, women and men have been mercilessly slaughtered for nine months in daily attacks by Israeli occupying forces (IOF). IOF, along with settler militias armed by the government, have used all forms of lethal weaponry and means to intimidate, torture and terrorize our people across every inch of the Occupied State of Palestine. No part of Gaza, north, central or south, no part of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is safe from the Israeli occupation’s reach and terror.

As of today, Israel has killed more than 38,193 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and injured more than 87,903 people. Thousands more are missing, buried under the rubble, in mass graves or in mass detention, disappeared by Israel without a trace. The casualties in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, stand at 571 Palestinians killed and 5,420 injured by IOF and settlers.

Many of the injured are disabled for life and many will die of their wounds, alongside the many who will die of malnutrition and chronically ill persons who will die for lack of medical treatment, as Israel has decimated the health system in Gaza, striking hospitals and depriving them of medicines and fuel to operate. The European, Nasser and Al-Ahli hospitals are the latest casualties of Israel’s assault on health care in Gaza.

Moreover, Israel has decimated the ranks of medical personnel with its relentless attacks on doctors, nurses and medics, its documented detention and torture of medical staff and its targeting and killing of over 254 humanitarian workers, among them 194 United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) staff members, and at least 103 Palestinian journalists in Gaza, including the murder of 6 journalists in recent days.

The shocking toll of these past nine months will only continue to rise without the ceasefire that has long been called for by the General Assembly and Security Council. Every day there are over 100 casualties, with 40 Palestinians killed just today and dozens more injured as this letter is being written.

Left without a ceasefire and without protection from their ruthless occupier, children and women constitute the majority of casualties of this Israeli war on the Palestinian people. At least 16,000 children have been murdered by Israel since 8 October 2023, and tens of thousands of children have been wounded, with over 2,000 enduring amputations. There is absolutely no excuse or rationale that can justify such slaughter and torment of civilians, such heinous collective punishment, such blatant acts of genocide.

And yet, the international community fails to act to hold Israel to account and sanction it for its crimes, even after its listing as a serial violator of child rights in the annual United Nations report on children and armed conflict. The Security Council continues to fail to act in order to enforce its resolutions, including resolutions   2712 (2023), 2720 (2023) , 2728 (2024) and 2735 (2024), and to hold Israel accountable for its systematic violations, including of the binding provisional measures orders of the International Court of Justice.

Moreover, countries continue to transfer weapons and ammunition to Israel, knowing full well that these arms will be used to kill Palestinian civilians, and they continue to shield Israel and its government and military leaders from accountability for their crimes, including by attempts to obstruct at the International Criminal Court.

This is beyond a betrayal of our people, who have been failed by the international community for decades since the decision in 1947 to strip them of their homeland and strip them of their right to self-determination; it is equally a betrayal of humanity and of the international legal order established to protect all peoples and ensure international peace and security.

Left unprotected and defenceless and denied their inalienable rights, despite all the resolutions and all the demands for compliance by Israel, the occupying Power, our people have only suffered more horrific atrocities, more loss and more devastation.

While more than 80 per cent of the housing and nearly every hospital and school and vast swathes of water and sanitation networks has already been destroyed by the IOF in Gaza, the ongoing Israeli onslaught is causing only more mass destruction and mass displacement. This begs these questions: What will be left in Gaza if the Israel war machine is not stopped? Who will be left in Gaza if Israel is not stopped?

United Nations estimates indicate that at least 9 out of 10 people in Gaza have already been forcibly displaced from their homes since October 2023. Displacements continue to occur daily as Israel continues to issue “evacuation orders”, doing so repeatedly for some areas, as it has now done again in Khan Younis and Rafah, with some families reporting having been displaced 8 to 10 times in a desperate search of safety that is nowhere to be found.

These families have been severely traumatized by constant displacements and terrorized by the unrelenting Israeli attacks and the massacres being perpetrated all around them. They are exhausted, afraid, hungry and dehydrated as Israel continues to use starvation and dehydration as weapons of war, persisting with its obstruction of humanitarian access and the delivery of desperately needed aid.

Nearly the entire population of Gaza has now been displaced, including those who had been ordered by Israel to leave the north and had sought shelter in Rafah and on hospital grounds across Gaza. The majority of people have been pushed into smaller and smaller areas with no humanitarian supplies and no civilian infrastructure – no homes, no food, no safe drinking water, no fuel, no sanitation.

Over a half a million people have now been pushed into the so-called “humanitarian zone” in the sandy area of Al-Mawasi, crammed into makeshift tents in the scorching heat with literally nowhere else to go other than the sea and exposed not only to the elements, but also to Israeli bombardments by air, land and sea. The rest of the population has sought refuge in the few homes and government buildings that remain standing and in UNRWA shelters, which also continue to come under attack by IOF, including just days ago in another strike on an UNRWA school in the Nuseirat refugee camp in which 16 civilians were killed and 50 others were injured, including children and women.

The level of human suffering and indignities are beyond description and beyond comprehension. It is unconscionable that this wanton killing and destruction has carried on for nine months with no end in sight.

When will the international community act to uphold the rule of law? When will the Security Council act on its solemn mandate under the Charter of the United Nations to maintain international peace and security and its pledges to protect civilians in armed conflict, including children, women, humanitarian personnel and journalists, all of whom are under constant attack in Occupied Palestine? When will the perpetrators of these horrific crimes against the Palestinian people be held accountable? When will there be justice for the victims?

Left undeterred, it is obvious that Israel will continue to wreak human and physical devastation across Occupied Palestine. This is painfully clear from the continual vows of the Prime Minister and his far-right government coalition to exact only more death and destruction and from their vows to proceed with their plans to ethnically cleanse, colonize and annex our land, including recently revealed plans for the largest seizure of Palestinian land – another 12.7 km² in the Jordan Valley – in more than 30 years.

In fact, the extremist settler Minister of Finance brags that land confiscations by Israel in 2024 have exceeded confiscations in prior years “tenfold” and that “this is something that will change the map dramatically”, following previous declarations that his “life’s mission is to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian State” and his constant incitement and collusion with settler terror, including pogroms against Palestinian civilians.

This is not a secret; this is official Israeli government policy, reflected every day in the words and actions of its politicians and military commanders, who continue to threaten more war against the Palestinian people and also against neighbouring countries, primarily Lebanon, boasting like thugs that they will “wipe out” areas and “turn them to ruins” and acting like a rogue State.

Again, all of this is being perpetrated by Israel in full view and with the total contempt of the international community, which has long demanded an end to these illegal actions, including Israeli settlements activities across the Palestinian territory it has occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem. And yet, no action is being taken to stop these crimes, including the blatant acquisition of territory by force, in violation of one of the cardinal principles of the Charter.

The international community cannot remain paralyzed in the face of the war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide being perpetrated by Israel, the occupying Power, against the Palestinian people. As we tragically mark nine months and inconceivably enter the tenth month of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, the Palestinian leadership solemnly and urgently calls again on the international community to act now to ensure and enforce a ceasefire and save the millions of human lives that are at risk.

We appeal to the Security Council, General Assembly, Human Rights Council, International Court of Justice, International Criminal Court and all States to rise to their responsibilities and obligations to act to stop these atrocities, protect the Palestinian people and restore humanity and the prospect for a just peace in line with international law and the relevant United Nations resolutions.

The international community cannot continue allowing Israel to trample international law and destroy the international legal order without consequences. The international community cannot continue forsaking the Palestinian people and its permanent responsibility towards them until a just solution is realized for this grave, historic injustice. It is time to act. There must be an end to this genocide and an end to this illegal colonial Israeli occupation and apartheid regime. Only then can peace and security ever be realized.

The present letter is in follow-up to our 841 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 28 June 2024 (A/ES-10/1000–S/2024/518), 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 an official 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