NGO Action News – 12 September 2024

This newsletter informs about recent and upcoming activities of Civil Society Organizations working on the question of Palestine. The Committee and the Division for Palestinian Rights of the UN Secretariat provide the information “as is” without warranty of any kind, and do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, or reliability of the information contained in the websites linked in the newsletter.

You may find previous issues of the NGO Action News in Spanish here.

You may find issues of the NGO Action News in French here.

You may find issues of the NGO Action News in Arabic here.

Middle East

• On 9 September, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights informed that, as the new school year in Palestine has started, 800,000 students in Gaza are deprived of their right to education amid the ongoing destruction by Israel of schools and universities. The NGO stressed the importance of having a regular educational process and warned against the collapse of the educational system.
• On 6 September, Peace Now, Breaking the Silence, and Mothers Against Violence organised a solidarity visit to the Palestinian community of Zanuta in the occupied West Bank. The visit, attended by dozens of activists, shed light on the severe consequences of settler violence in the area. According to the NGOs, since the outbreak of the Gaza war, Israeli settlers have taken their aggression a step further by destroying homes and even the local school, leaving the residents with nothing to return to.
• On 5 September, Al Haq published a statement from several Palestinian and regional CSOs, recalling that the European Union and its Member States are obligated to act and enforce the findings of the International Court of Justice’s Advisory Opinion. The statement reads that based on the legal conclusions of the ICJ, the EU and its Member States must impose an embargo banning both exports to and imports of weapons from Israel, ban trade with illegal Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, suspend all trade agreements that directly or indirectly benefit the Israeli unlawful occupation, and suspend its Association Agreements with Israel.
• On 4 September, the Executive Director of B’Tselem, Yuli Novak, addressed the Security Council. She stated that Israel is waging war on the entire Palestinian people, committing war crimes almost daily. In Gaza, this has taken the form of expulsion, starvation, killing, and destruction on an unprecedented scale. She added that this was going beyond revenge for the
  7 October attack, claiming that Israel was using the opportunity to promote the ideological agenda of making Gaza uninhabitable.
• On 3 September, 7amleh published the position paper “The war on Gaza: An analytical reading of the consequences and impacts on digital safety among Palestinian youth”. This paper offers an analytical review of the potential effects of digital violations, including digital intimidation, led by Israel, which have eroded the sense of security among Palestinian youth, while also reflecting on the stance of human rights organizations on the issue.

Africa, Asia and Europe

• On 10 September, the Norwegian Refugee Council issued a press release warning that repeated strikes into densely populated areas of Gaza, where Palestinian civilians had been ordered to flee, demonstrated that Israel’s unlawful relocation directives had failed to protect or offer any guarantees of safety for Palestinians. This statement followed an Israeli shelling, on 9 September, on Al-Mawasi, an area where civilians were told to flee as part of a ‘humanitarian zone’ unilaterally declared by Israel.
• On 8 September, the Palestinian Return Centre published the online discussion “Artists Defying Gaza Genocide: From Naji Al-Ali to Refat Al-Areer”. The event brought together prominent Palestinian artists who shared insights on the powerful role of art as a form of resistance and a tool for solidarity. The panel focused not only on the role of art but also on the systematic targeting of Palestinian creative professionals.
• On 5 September, Amnesty International stated that the Israeli military’s campaign to significantly expand a “buffer zone” along the eastern perimeter of the occupied Gaza Strip should be investigated as the war crimes of wanton destruction and of collective punishment. The NGO concluded in a new investigation that Israeli security forces have obliterated residential buildings, forced thousands of families from their homes and rendered their land uninhabitable. These homes were not destroyed as the result of intense fighting; rather, the Israeli military deliberately razed the land after they had taken control of the area.
• On 4 September, Law For Palestine and Palestinian grassroots and civil society movements and organizations published a statement welcoming the recent ICJ Advisory Opinion. The organisations reiterated their demands to the international community, namely Third States, the United Nations, and corporate entities, to work to end Israel’s military occupation, settlement enterprise, and what they consider to be an apartheid regime.

North America

• On 10 September, Human Rights Watch alerted that the Israeli military’s use of surveillance technologies, artificial intelligence, and other digital tools to help determine targets to attack in Gaza may be increasing the risk of civilian harm. The NGO informed that the Israeli military is using digital tools in the Gaza hostilities to estimate the number of civilians in an area prior to an attack, notify soldiers when to attack, and to determine whether a person is a civilian or a combatant, as well as whether a structure is civilian or military. Human Rights Watch found that the digital tools appear to rely on faulty data and inexact approximations to inform military actions in ways that could contravene Israel’s obligations under international humanitarian law, in particular the rules of distinction and precaution.
• On 6 September, J Street issued a statement following reports that a US human rights activist had been shot dead in the occupied West Bank amid Israeli security forces’ fire. According to reports, the 26-year-old was involved in a campaign to protect Palestinian farmers from violent attacks and intimidation by extremist Israeli settlers. The NGO urged the US government to ensure there is an independent US-led investigation of this tragedy and that responsible parties are held fully accountable. Americans for Peace Now issued a statement on this killing as well, adding that the US government has a duty to ensure that US-supplied weapons are not being used to violate international law or to harm US citizens. Jewish Voice for Peace also published an article on this topic.

United Nations

• On 10 September, the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Tor Wennesland, published a statement to strongly condemn deadly airstrikes by Israel on a densely populated area in an Israeli-designated humanitarian zone in Khan Younis where displaced people were sheltering. Mr. Wennesland underlined that international humanitarian law, including the principles of distinction, proportionality, and precaution, must be upheld at all times. He also emphasized that civilians must never be used as human shields. The UN Human Rights Office issued a statement on this incident as well, calling for a prompt, independent and thorough investigation into this latest strike and for those responsible to be held to account.
• On 9 September, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, addressed the 57th session of the Human Rights Council, stating that since the 7 October attacks, which had claimed the lives of over 1,200 victims in Israel and injured many others, over 40,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces, several thousand injured, and thousands remain under the rubble in Gaza. He called for the wider situation of illegality across the Occupied Palestinian Territory deriving from Israel’s policies and practices, to be comprehensively addressed as spelled out by the International Court of Justice in its Advisory Opinion in July. He added that States cannot accept a blatant disregard for international law, including binding decisions of the Security Council and orders of the International Court of Justice.