NGO Action News – 15 May 2025

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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.

Middle East

• On 13 May, Badil issued the press release “Militarized Aid Distribution in Gaza – Institutionalizing the Weaponization of Aid and Reestablishing Israeli Military Presence”. The NGO stated that Israel’s War Cabinet would approve on 14 May a new aid distribution scheme for Gaza, to replace the existing UN-led system with a mechanism run by private U.S. military contractors, Israeli forces and a Swiss-registered entity. The press release reads that the ultimate aims of this new policy were to further destabilize the existing humanitarian system and expedite the replacement of UNRWA and re-establish and legitimize the Israeli military presence in the Gaza Strip. Gisha, Al Mezan and the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect published articles on this topic as well.
• On 12 May, the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies and Law for Palestine published a statement from Palestinian civil society and human rights organizations worldwide calling for the halt to what they consider to be a manufactured famine in Gaza, as Israel has blocked all humanitarian supplies and life-saving assistance since 2 March, constituting the longest total siege Gaza has ever experienced. The statement also called on the international community to act decisively, immediately, and with complete moral and legal responsibility, including through the organization and deployment of a humanitarian convoy to Gaza, with diplomatic presence, through the Rafah Crossing.
• On 12 May, Al Mezan published the fact sheet “The Effects of Israel’s Genocidal Siege and Starvation on Gaza’s Children, Pregnant Women, and Nursing Mothers” documenting what the NGO considers to be the calculated use of hunger as a weapon of war in Gaza.
• On 12 May, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights published the report “Torture and Genocide: The Shattered Futures of Former Palestinian Detainees in Gaza”, documenting the systematic use of torture and inhumane treatment of Palestinians from Gaza detained by Israel since 7 October 2023. The NGO’s report concluded that the treatment of Palestinians from Gaza amounted to torture and that such torture formed an integral part of an ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people.
• On 12 May, Al-Haq published the report “Legal Brief I: Special Intent (Dolus Specialis) Required to Classify Acts as Genocide”, examining the special “intent to destroy”, that must accompany any act enumerated in Article II of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. This report is part of a series of legal briefs which, according to the NGO, aimed to provide a toolkit of legal analysis and relevant caselaw on genocide to aid and assist practitioners of law, and those engaging in legal research and advocacy on genocide, and the case of the Palestinian people in particular.
• On 12 May, Peace Now published an article informing that the Israeli government’s Security Cabinet decided to initiate a land registration process in Area C of the occupied West Bank. According to the NGO, the process of land registration determines definitive ownership of land, and due to its irreversible nature, international law prohibits an occupying power from carrying it out in occupied territory. Given the conditions under which this registration process would be carried out, it would effectively constitute a massive land grab that would dispossess Palestinians of rights to nearly all land in Area C, the article further reads.

Africa, Asia and Europe

• On 13 May, the Palestinian Return Center organized the online panel “Gaza as the Second Nakba”. The event featured Dr. Maha Nassar, Associate Professor of Modern Middle Eastern History at the University of Arizona, who spoke on how the current Israeli war on Gaza represented not only a humanitarian catastrophe but also a continuation of the Nakba that began in 1948.
• On 7 May, Amnesty International published an article calling on the Israeli government to immediately abandon its recently unveiled plans for expanded military operations, including plans to annex territory and forcibly displace Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip, which would gravely violate international law. The NGO added that the international community must reject these plans and pressure Israel to comply with its obligations under international law and ensure unhindered humanitarian aid access throughout Gaza. Association France Palestine Solidarité published (in French) an article on this issue, among many other organizations.

North America

• On 16 May, The Jerusalem Fund’s Palestine Center will organize a screening of the movie “From Ground Zero” in Washington, D.C. The organizer informed that this documentary was a collection of revealing stories from 22 Palestinian filmmakers who captured their lives in Gaza amidst war.
• On 9 May, Friends of Sabeel North America published an article on the recent Israeli plan to alter the distribution of food in Gaza radically. The NGO stated that, in the past, Israel had tried to control the overall amount of food allowed into Gaza and to calculate the number of calories needed to keep 2 million people on a tight diet, and that with the new plan, the distribution network itself was targeted so that Israel could fully control all food entering the Strip.

United Nations

• On 15 May, the United Nations Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People (CEIRPP) convened to commemorate the Nakba – the 1948 permanent displacement of more than half of the Palestinian population from their ancestral lands. Statements were delivered by Blanca Montejo, Deputy Chief of Staff to the President of the General Assembly; Khaled Khiari, Assistant Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs; Professor Noura Erakat of Rutgers University; and Minister Riyad Mansour, Permanent Observer of the State of Palestine to the UN, who spoke on behalf of President Mahmoud Abbas of the State of Palestine. These statements are available on the UNISPAL The event was followed by the screening of episodes from the short film collection “From Ground Zero”, shedding light on the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and exploring the impact of conflict on civilians and the broader implications for international peace and security. On the margins of this event, the Committee convened on 15-16 May its 1st 2025 Civil Society Consultations on “International Action Towards Ending the Nakba and Realizing the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People”. All Member States and Observers, United Nations organizations, and intergovernmental and civil society organizations were invited to attend.
• On 13 May, the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Tom Fletcher, briefed the Security Council on the humanitarian situation and the protection of aid workers in Gaza. He stated that Israel was deliberately imposing inhumane conditions on civilians in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, as “nothing had entered Gaza – no food, medicine, water or tents” for more than ten weeks. Mr. Fletcher also raised concerns on the situation in the occupied West Bank , where settlement expansion and settler violence continued at alarming levels, sometimes with the support of Israeli forces.
  At the same meeting, the Director of the Food and Agriculture Organization Liaison Office, Angélica Jácome, warned of the systemic breakdown of conditions essential for survival in Gaza.
• On 12 May, the UN Division for Palestinian Rights published the “Bulletin on action by the United Nations system and Intergovernmental Organizations relevant to the Question of Palestine”, covering the month of April 2025.