Calling for implementation of Security Council resolutions to end the siege and protect Palestinian lives – Letter from the State of Palestine – (A/ES-10/1000-S/2024/518)

28 June 2024

Identical letters dated 28 June 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 nearly three weeks since the Security Council’s adoption of resolution 2735 (2024), by which the Council welcomed the ceasefire proposal by the United States President and “urged both parties to fully implement its terms without delay and without condition”, with phase 1 of the proposal explicitly calling for, inter alia, “an immediate, full and complete ceasefire”.

Yet, Israel, the occupying Power, refuses to cease its war on the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, committing atrocities unabated across northern, central and southern Gaza, causing thousands more civilian casualties and further destruction of all facets of life. Since the resolution’s adoption, Israel has caused at least another 2,616 Palestinian casualties, another 2,616 children, youth, women and men who have been killed or maimed, and hundreds are being victimized and traumatized by this criminal, genocidal onslaught every single day.

To date, the toll of Israel’s aggression on Gaza since October 2023 has now surpassed 37,765 Palestinians killed and more than 86,429 wounded. These shocking numbers do not include the thousands missing and unaccounted for, whether crushed in their homes by Israeli bombardment, buried in mass graves, or arrested and detained by Israel without a trace.

As reported on 24 June by Save the Children International, over 20,000 children in Gaza alone are estimated to be “lost, disappeared, detained, buried under rubble or in mass graves”. An estimated 17,000 children in Gaza have been orphaned or left unaccompanied, suffering untold anguish and fear. According to Médecins sans frontières (MSF), children are unable to cope with the scale of loss and trauma and many are expressing a “desire to die instead of living this horror”.

The inclusion of the Israeli occupying forces (IOF) in the list of shame in the report of the Secretary-General on children and armed conflict this year is long overdue. All States must act on this determination to hold Israel accountable for its systematic violations of the rights and lives of Palestinian children in line with international legal obligations, including by immediately halting the transfer of weapons and ammunition to Israel, aimed at halting its killing and maiming of Palestinian children.

In this regard, of the over 86,429 Palestinians wounded, thousands are children. Many have been permanently disabled and many will die of their wounds, deprived of the necessary medications, surgical treatments and sanitary conditions, as Israel’s siege on Gaza and obstruction of humanitarian assistance continues unabated, in defiance of the Security Council, the provisional measures orders of the International Court of Justice and the international community’s repeated demands for unfettered, immediate humanitarian access and the distribution of humanitarian aid to all in need.

According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), each day at least 10 children lose one or both of their legs. It is estimated that over 2,000 children in Gaza have lost one or both legs since Israel began its onslaught on Gaza in October 2023. Many amputations are being done without anesthesia, subjecting children to unimaginable suffering and trauma in order to save their lives. These shocking figures do not include the thousands who have also lost arms or hands, with children being far more vulnerable than adults to the explosive and lethal weapons being used by Israel against the Palestinian civilian population.

At the same time, in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, Israel has carried on with its violent military assaults on Palestinian villages, towns, cities and refugee camps and with the arrest, detention and torture of Palestinian civilians, including children. The casualty toll as a result has risen to 536 Palestinians killed, including 130 children, and 5,370 injured, including 830 children, since October 2023.

This has been accompanied by its full complicity in an intensifying campaign of settler violence and terrorism, with daily incidents of attacks on Palestinian civilians, the burning and looting of Palestinian properties and the forced displacement of Palestinian families. Just yesterday, Israeli settler gangs, backed by IOF, seized another Palestinian home in the Old City of occupied East Jerusalem, violently evicting the family, and on 26 June, Israel carried out yet another demolition, this time in Umm al-Kheir, south of Hebron, displacing 38 people, most of them children, and adding them to the thousands of Palestinians forcibly displaced from their homes and communities in the West Bank over the past year.

Israel’s extremist Minister of Finance, a settler himself, has also recently declared the government’s intent to construct thousands more settlement units and boasted of plans to annex the entirety of the territory of the State of Palestine that has been under Israeli occupation since 1967.

Undeterred by the Security Council and global calls to halt these war crimes and crimes against humanity, the far-right extremists in the Prime Minister’s coalition and the Prime Minister himself persist with their rabid, racist, genocidal incitement, openly vowing to spill more Palestinian blood, steal more Palestinian land and continue to collectively punish and torment the Palestinian people and their leadership. In contempt of the Security Council’s authority, of its own closest ally and defender and of the international community as a whole, the Israeli Prime Minister has vowed to continue with his war of annihilation in Gaza and the Israeli military continues to carry out his genocidal orders, ethnically cleansing, starving, killing, maiming and terrorizing Palestinians, all while colonizing and annexing their land.

The days since the adoption of resolution 2735 (2024) have thus witnessed only more death and destruction, more pain and suffering for innocent civilians. The situation in Gaza is especially grave, defying description and defying humanity, as Israel continues to deprive our people of food, water, medicine, hygiene supplies and also of fuel, which has brought Palestine Red Crescent Society ambulances and other humanitarian services by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and other United Nations agencies to a grinding halt, risking the loss of many more lives, including from wounds, starvation and the spread of diseases.

This is being done deliberately and systematically in breach of all norms of international law, including humanitarian and human rights law, and in direct violation of the Security Council resolutions demanding an end to these illegal policies and actions. Israel is perpetrating these violations openly, boastfully, secure in its belief that there will never be a cost or any consequences for its crimes.

When will the Security Council act to uphold its mandate under the Charter of the United Nations, when will it act to enforce its resolutions, which are binding for all States? When will the Security Council act to implement resolution  2735 (2024), as well as resolutions 2728 (2024), 2720 (2023) and  2712 (2023), 2334 (2016) and all its relevant resolutions? When will the Council demand the independent international investigations required to ensure accountability for all these heinous crimes? When will the Council act to stop the further implosion and spread of this dangerous situation and protect civilian lives?

We reiterate our appeal for urgent action by the Security Council to act forthwith to enforce its resolutions to ensure an immediate ceasefire, to protect the Palestinian people, and to ensure compliance with international law. Millions of lives have been devastated already and millions remain at risk in Gaza and the rest of the Occupied State of Palestine under the threat of this illegal, colonial, apartheid occupation regime and its genocidal policies and actions. We appeal to the international community as a whole to act forthwith to bring an end to this abhorrent, unlawful, immoral situation, which constitutes a direct threat to regional and international peace and security, and to bring to an end this grave injustice against the Palestinian people.

The present letter is in follow-up to our 840 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 June 2024 (A/ES-10/999-S/2024/447) 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