The Security Council must demand an immediate ceasefire and must ensure compliance by all parties – Letter from the State of Palestine (A/ES-10/1014-S/2024/761)

21 October 2024

Identical letters dated 21 October 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 is committing a genocide within a genocide in the Gaza Strip before the eyes of the world.

More than 470,000 civilian lives in the northern Gaza Strip are in imminent danger of slaughter, among the millions of Palestinian civilian lives at risk as the Israeli killing machine carries on without deterrence, without consequences, as the international community looks on.

In northern Gaza, Israeli occupying forces (IOF) are openly implementing what is now widely known as the “General’s Plan”, an insidious plan to declare the area a so-called “military zone” in order to complete the forced transfer of the Palestinian civilian population and annexation of the area.

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinian children, women and men are being besieged, starved, killed and maimed as part of this criminal Israeli plan to ethnically cleanse Palestinian cities, towns and refugees camps north of Wadi Gaza. The Jabaliya refugee camp and city have become the epicentre of this genocide within a genocide.

No food, no water and no medicine, none of the essentials of human survival, had been allowed into the area for weeks by the occupying Power, already depleting coping capacities and exacerbating already unbearable human suffering. Hospitals are being methodically targeted, depriving the civilian population of care in the midst of a genocide. The humanitarian situation defies words, “catastrophe” no longer sufficient to describe this horrifying reality. The “choice” Israel is giving to our people: leave your land or be killed by starvation or by bombs and bullets.

In this weakened and traumatized state, Palestinian families are yet again facing “evacuation orders” by Israel, demanding that civilians move yet again, forcibly, against their will, to the south of Gaza, knowing there is nowhere safe to go. As we witnessed in the early months of this genocide, we are seeing again harrowing scenes of columns of vulnerable defenceless children, women, men, elderly and disabled persons in the thousands forced to move on foot to the south, desperate to escape the sword of death that Israel holds above their heads if they stay.

Families who refuse to move, insisting on staying in their homes rather than face the indignities and ordeals of forced displacement, are being treated as military targets by Israel. As a result, in the week since my most recent letter to you, IOF have killed and wounded hundreds more Palestinians.

For weeks we have warned the international community that this criminal plan is under way. We have appealed at every juncture, day after day, week after week, month after month, to act to stop this genocide. Yet, the Security Council, looks on, observing, monitoring and decrying, but still paralysed from acting in the face of the blatant war crimes and crimes against humanity Israel is systematically perpetrating and in the face of its pledges of even more to come, ploughing ahead with no regard for international law and no regard for human life.

In the wake of Israel’s killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, the occupying Power has shifted into an even more intense phase of its genocidal plans. It is openly exploiting the international community’s inaction to finalize its nefarious objectives to empty northern Gaza of its people and to destroy whatever remains of homes and civilian infrastructure there, every single act gravely breaching international law and shredding whatever remains of the standing of the international legal order.

What is happening in northern Gaza is another level of monstrosity by Israel against the Palestinian people under its illegal occupation. It is another level of depravity, of collective punishment, indeed of capital collective punishment, condemning an entire people to annihilation. It must be stopped now. Silence and inaction are not an option. The Palestinian people must be protected from Israel’s genocidal mania before it is too late – in Gaza and in the rest of Occupied Palestine, including East Jerusalem.

The Security Council must act within all the powers it has under the Charter of the United Nations. The Council members must unite in action to protect civilians, to uphold our collective humanity and to salvage the international legal order Israel is so recklessly and deliberately ravaging.

The Security Council must demand an immediate ceasefire and it must ensure compliance by all parties. It must stop the forced transfer and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people. It must ensure immediate, unimpeded humanitarian assistance at scale through the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and all other United Nations agencies and international organizations ready, able and willing to provide life-saving aid.

The Security Council must stop hesitating to exercise its responsibilities. The Council must reject Israel’s intimidation and claims that lawful action by the international community would exacerbate the situation, when it is clearly the opposite – the inaction has allowed this horrific situation to go far beyond what the human mind and soul can tolerate, clearly constituting a grave threat to international peace and security.

Action is urgent, it is imperative, it is a collective duty, it is a matter of life and death for millions of human beings, it is a matter of international peace and security. The Palestinian government and people implore the Security Council, the General Assembly and all peace-loving States and peoples to act now in the name of our collective humanity to stop this genocide.

This letter is in follow-up to our 850 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 14 October 2024 (A/ES-10/1013-S/2024/743) 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