Calling for an arms embargo and sanctions on Israel – Letter from the State of Palestine (A/ES-10/996-S/2024/410)

27 May 2024

Identical letters dated 27 May 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, the occupying Power, is perpetrating genocide against the Palestinian people, targeting the entire civilian population but especially children, who are being murdered in cold blood, blown up by bombs, crushed to pieces in their homes, starved to death, incinerated and beheaded before the eyes of the world.

And, still, there has been no tangible action taken by the international community to stop this sheer terror, barbarity and inhumanity being perpetrated against our defenceless people, allowing Israel to carry on with its depraved campaign of slaughter and destruction with absolute impunity, scorching the earth in Gaza as it scorches innocent children, women and men to death.

Nothing can ever justify genocide. No act, no attack, no threat can ever justify genocide by whomever, wherever, against any people.

Those who continue parroting Israel’s claims that it is executing this war against the Palestinian people it is occupying and besieging as a so-called “war of self-defence”, rather than as a war of wanton vengeance, willful aggression and blatant annihilation, will be shamed by history for their complicity in the massacres that Israel and its occupying forces are perpetrating every single day.

Yesterday the international community again bore witness to Israel’s utter depravity with its deliberate attack on a tent encampment sheltering Palestinian families who had been recently forcibly displaced there, a place designated a “safe zone”, by the explicit “evacuation” orders by Israeli occupying forces. This Israeli strike on the Tal al-Sultan area of Rafah killed at least 45 Palestinians, most of them women and children, many killed instantly in their tents and others burned to death as fire spread throughout the encampment following the bombing, leaving a scene of absolute horror.

These families were displaced repeatedly, running for months from north to south to the centre to south to west in the tiny strip of land that is Gaza, desperately trying to escape Israel’s killing machine and bearing untold indignities for nearly eight months. But they fled and suffered to no avail as Israeli occupying forces have incessantly chased down Palestinian children, women and men, targeting them for death. In fact, Israel’s strike yesterday on Tal al-Sultan in the south follows a series of attacks by Israeli occupying forces in recent days on Jabaliya and Gaza City in the north and Nuseirat refugee camp in the centre of Gaza, in which Israeli occupying forces killed at least 160 other people, while injuring hundreds of others.

All this is happening despite the third set of provisional measures orders indicated by the International Court of Justice to Israel on 24 May, including the explicit order to “immediately halt its military offensive, and any other action in the Rafah Governorate, which may inflict on the Palestinian group in Gaza conditions of life that could bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part”.

Yet Israel persists with its assault on Palestinian lives in utter contempt of the Court and its binding orders, deliberately and systematically violating every single order as it persists with its grave breaches of international law, including humanitarian and human rights law, and every relevant United Nations resolution, including Security Council resolutions 2712 (2023), 2720 (2023) and 2728 (2024), and all the global calls for a halt to this onslaught.

There is no law prohibiting attacks on civilians that Israel will respect, there is no language demanding a ceasefire that Israel will heed. Instead, it continues to act as a State above the law, flagrantly violating every rule of law, every moral of humanity, openly lying about its actions and aims, openly disparaging any State or person that demands a halt to this barbarity, openly challenging any institution that demands its compliance with the laws applicable to all peoples, all countries and all situations, including the State of Palestine and her people.

We call once more on the Security Council to act as a matter of obligation in line with its duties under the Charter of the United Nations and as a matter of urgency to bring a halt to this genocidal war in Gaza by which Israel, the occupying Power, has thus far killed more than 36,050 Palestinians and wounded more than 81,000 Palestinians, the majority of victims children and women. We call again on the international community as a whole, including the Security Council, to act now to bring a halt to the slaughter of our people and the irreparable harm being done to them. A ceasefire must be demanded and implemented now and the Palestinian civilian population must be protected.

Such war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide can never be normalized or justified; the international community cannot resign itself to accepting such inhumanity. It is time to hold Israel, the occupying Power, and all of its responsible government and military officials and forces accountable for all of the crimes that they are perpetrating against the Palestinian people, methodically, deliberately, maliciously and wantonly across Gaza and the rest of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem.

We call for an arms embargo and sanctions on Israel to pressure a halt to its crimes and compel its compliance with international law to bring an end to its illegal occupation, apartheid, oppression and onslaught against the Palestinian people.

Moreover, Israel must be listed as a violator of child rights. There can be no acceptance of the lie that Israel respects children’s rights when it has killed over 15,000 Palestinian children and wounded tens of thousands more in Gaza alone, in addition to the killing and wounding of hundreds in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, inflicting terror, trauma and suffering on them as a matter of State policy. It is a serial violator of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and a serial violator of the Fourth Geneva Convention and all laws intended to protect children and ensure their well-being, and should be treated as such.

All States have a duty to act in this regard in line with their international legal obligations and any sense of humanity that remains in this world. We again appeal for their action now to protect the Palestinian people and bring an end to this grave injustice.

The present letter is in follow-up to our 836 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 24 May 2024 (A/ES-10/995-S/2024/406) 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