State of Palestine letter calling for the extension of the ceasefire in Gaza to the rest of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem (A/ES-10/1049-S/2025/753)

18 November 2025

Identical letters dated 18 November 2025 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

More than a month has passed since the ceasefire agreement for Gaza came into force on 10 October 2025, following the mediation of the United States, Egypt, Qatar and Türkiye. While intensive international efforts to sustain the ceasefire and advance recovery continue, Israel, the occupying Power, chooses instead to carry on with its heinous crimes.

Not for a single day has Israel ceased its lethal attacks, colonization measures, dehumanization of the Palestinian people and blatant ethnic cleansing campaign across the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, including escalating settler terror blatantly aimed at expelling our people from their homeland.

This has included constant incitement by Israel’s “National Security Minister” and extremist settler Ben-Gvir, who recently claimed that “there is no such thing as a Palestinian people” and that the only solution for Gaza is “voluntary migration”, code in Israel for forced transfer of Palestinians.

Referring to the prospects of a Security Council resolution proposed by the United States to consolidate the ceasefire plan and establish an international stabilization force, which was adopted yesterday as resolution 2803 (2025), Ben-Gvir made open threats against Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and other senior Palestinian government officials if the United Nations advanced recognition of a Palestinian State. If this were to happen, he declared: “Orders must be given for targeted killings of senior Palestinian Authority officials – who are terrorists in every respect – as well as an order for the arrest of Abu Mazen. There is a solitary confinement cell ready for him in Ketziot Prison.”

The international community must condemn such repugnant threats and incitement, and he and all other Israeli war criminals must be held accountable for the illegal, racist and dehumanizing policies that they continue to both foment and implement.

In this regard, we regret to inform you that the dystopian horror of mass displacement, destruction, hunger, poverty and despair inflicted on Gaza by this extremist Israeli government remains the reality as Israel continues to restrict aid flows far below the level in the ceasefire agreement and the scope needed to care for survivors of a genocide and famine.

In grave breach of its obligations under international law, including the International Court of Justice provisional measures orders, Israel is still withholding life essentials from the Palestinian population, including food, water, baby formula and medicine, as well as shelter materials, leaving thousands of displaced families in makeshift tents and exposed to the misery of the cold rains that have arrived in Gaza.

Israeli occupying forces also continue to kill, wound and maim Palestinian civilians. Yesterday, another two Palestinians were killed by Israeli occupying forces near the so-called “yellow line”. Israeli occupying forces have murdered at least 266 Palestinians, including children and women, in Gaza since the ceasefire, raising the death toll now to over 70,000 Palestinians, including bodies that have been recovered from under the rubble and dead bodies of detainees killed in Israeli captivity, some mutilated beyond recognition, that have been returned to Gaza and buried in mass graves. Hundreds more Palestinians have been injured since the ceasefire, including by yesterday’s Israeli drone attack on a school sheltering displaced families in the Daraj neighbourhood of Gaza City, which wounded 13 civilians, including children, deepening traumas and provoking widespread fears of a resumed Israeli onslaught.

Israeli violence against Palestinians in the West Bank also dramatically increased in the past month, particularly settler terrorism. In October 2025, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs documented the highest number of Israeli settler attacks in any month since it began documenting these crimes in 2006 – with 260 attacks resulting in Palestinian casualties and destruction to Palestinian property, in addition to constant intimidation and harassment of the population.

Settler militias also continue arson attacks across the West Bank. Recent attacks targeted the village of Al-Jaba’, south-west of Bethlehem, where dozens of Israeli settlers rampaged and set fire to homes and properties; the village of Sa‘ir, north-east of Hebron, where settler gangs burned properties and assaulted women and men with batons and other weapons, while Israeli occupying forces blocked fire engines and ambulances from reaching the scene; and a vicious arson attack on Hamida Mosque near Deir Istiya. These crimes have been accompanied by daily settler attacks on Palestinians trying to harvest their olives and on shepherds and their flocks.

The settlers are clearly emboldened by the extremists in the Israeli government, who continue to aid and abet them and to accelerate settlement activities in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, in grave breach of international law and flagrant violation of United Nations resolutions, including, inter alia, Security Council resolution 2334 (2016), which demanded the cessation of all Israeli settlement activities, and General Assembly resolution ES-10/24, in which the Assembly further demanded an end to Israel’s illegal occupation in its entirety. They must be stopped and be held accountable.

This abhorrent situation cannot be allowed to continue. We therefore reiterate our calls for the extension of the ceasefire in Gaza to the rest of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, for a halt to the incitement and attacks on the Palestinian people wherever they may be and for their protection until Israel’s illegal colonial occupation is brought to an end and our people achieve their inalienable rights, including to self-determination, and the independence of the State of Palestine in accordance with the relevant United Nations resolutions and the two‑State solution based on the pre-1967 borders. The international community cannot lose sight of these fundamental objectives if a just, lasting and peaceful solution is to become a reality.

This letter is in follow-up to our 878 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 31 October 2025 (A/ES-10/1048-S/2025/701) 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 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