Appeal for Ramadan ceasefire – Letter from the State of Palestine (A/ES-10/986-S/2024/240)

14 March 2024

Identical letters dated 14 March 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

I write yet again to appeal for urgent international action to stop Israel’s genocidal war against the Palestinian people. It is long past time for a ceasefire. There is no other way to stop the bloodshed and protect civilians from further irreparable harm.

At the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, we echo the Secretary-General’s appeal for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, a call that continues to be made from every corner of the globe and a standing call by the General Assembly since 8 December 2023.

The international community must act to protect the millions of Palestinian children, women and men whose lives are being threatened by Israel’s continued criminal onslaught against the Gaza Strip and across the rest of Occupied Palestine, including East Jerusalem.

In the five months of this genocidal war, and as at 13 March, Israel has killed 31,341 Palestinian children, women and men and injured more than 73,000 people in Gaza, and has killed 418 Palestinians and injured 5,000 people in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

The majority of casualties in Gaza – over 70 per cent – continue to be women and children. In these five months, more Palestinian children have been killed than in all conflicts around the world in the past four years. Youth and elderly are also suffering immense harm. The estimated 8,000 people missing under the rubble of destroyed homes across Gaza are not accounted for in this gruesome toll. The deaths of people with cancer and other chronic diseases due to lack of medications and health care are also unaccounted for. This toll also does not count those disappeared by Israel’s arrest, abuse, including sexual violence, and torture of Palestinians, many who may not be alive.

Enough destruction of human lives, enough destruction of Palestine. The ongoing threats by Israel’s government and military officials, including the extremists in their midst, and ongoing rampage of the Israeli occupying forces and settler militias are endangering all civilians in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem. These war criminals must be stopped.

The international community must act in the face of Israel’s threats of a full-scale invasion of Rafah in southern Gaza, where over 1.5 million Palestinian lives are in imminent danger, and its escalating provocations and incitement in the West Bank, including in regard to the Aqsa Mosque. The ramifications of this dangerous situation will be far-reaching and grave if not stopped.

The warnings are grave and stark – from every United Nations organ, including the International Court of Justice provisional measures order of 26 January, from every United Nations agency on the ground, from every part of the United Nations system, including dozens of Special Rapporteurs, and from every international humanitarian and human rights organization – all of which implore for rapid, responsible action to stop this inhumanity and impunity.

We therefore call again upon the Security Council to uphold its duties under the Charter of the United Nations and act now to demand and enforce an immediate ceasefire.

The Council must act to protect the Palestinian civilian population from further harm. It must implement all relevant resolutions, including Security Council resolution 2712 (2023), which explicitly demands that “all parties comply with their obligations under international law, including international humanitarian law, notably with regard to the protection of civilians, especially children”.

This must translate into an immediate halt to the killing and wounding of Palestinians, a halt to their forced displacement, a halt to their collective punishment and starvation as a means of warfare, a halt to destruction of their homes, a halt to their arrest and detention and a halt to all violence and human rights abuses against them by this illegal Israeli colonial occupation and apartheid regime.

In this regard, coupled with an immediate ceasefire, there must be a complete halt to Israel’s nefarious plans to forcibly transfer the Palestinian civilian population of Gaza by one scheme or another, the latest being its threat to forcibly transfer the 1.5 million civilians in Rafah, over 600,000 of them children, to so-called “humanitarian islands”.

This also requires an immediate end to the Israeli siege on Gaza and requires coordinated efforts to ensure immediate, unimpeded humanitarian assistance at scale across all of Gaza to stop the famine inflicted by Israel on our people and alleviate the immense hardships and suffering caused by this criminal war and collective punishment against them. It also requires full support to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) as the central pillar of the United Nations system’s indispensable humanitarian operations in Gaza and the speedy and sufficient funding of it, as well as full support to the mandate of the Senior Humanitarian and Reconstruction Coordinator for Gaza, in line with Security Council resolution 2720 (2023).

It also requires immediate action to halt all other Israeli crimes in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, in particular the illegal settlement campaign, including a halt to and reversal of the recent decision to construct another 3,500 settlement units and of the demolition orders against thousands of Palestinian homes, especially in occupied East Jerusalem, by which Israel is proceeding unabated with its colonization and annexation of our territory and destruction of the two-State solution on the pre-1967 lines.

Stop the killing, stop the ethnic cleansing, stop the colonization and stop the impunity. It is time for accountability and for sanctions on the occupying Power to bring a halt to its war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide of the Palestinian people.

All States must uphold their international legal obligations and responsibilities and end any complicity. This includes the members of the Security Council. This is a matter of utmost urgency to protect civilian lives and to avert further destabilization of this extremely dangerous situation.

This must begin with a ceasefire now. It is time to act in the interest of the welfare of all civilians, Palestinians and Israelis, of the rule of law and of regional and international peace and security. The Council has every dire warning before it and must act now.

The present letter is in follow-up to our 829 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 29 February 2024 (A/ES-10/985-S/2024/202), 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