NGO Action News – 22 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 21 May, Al-Haq published the article “Forcible Displacement from Jenin Refugee Camp, A Symbol of Return and a Target of Erasure”, on Israel’s military operations for 119 consecutive days in northern occupied West Bank governorates, including Jenin, Tulkarem, and Tubas. According to the article, this ongoing military attack is the longest and most destructive in the occupied West Bank since the second Intifada.
• On 20 May, the Palestinian Human Rights Organizations Council sent a letter to Virginia Gamba, UN Acting Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, and Mô Bleeker, UN Special Adviser on the Responsibility to Protect, alerting on what the NGOs consider to be a genocide conducted by Israel, following the intensification of its campaign of killings and large-scale destruction in Gaza, alongside an escalating threat of forcibly expelling Palestinians from their homeland.
• On 20 May, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights published the report “Kidney Failure Patients Without Healthcare”, arguing that the Israeli military siege of Gaza, raids of hospitals and killing and arrest of medical personnel and patients alongside the destruction of medical equipment and devices and blocking the entry of fuel supplies necessary for the operation of hospitals constituted serious violations of the international humanitarian law. The NGO added that these Israeli violations have claimed the lives of 472 Palestinians out of 1,200 kidney failure patients.
• On 18 May, Gisha, ACRI, HaMoked and Physicians for Human Rights informed that they had submitted a petition to the Israeli High Court of Justice, demanding that it ordered Israeli officials to immediately open the crossings to the Gaza Strip, and take all necessary and effective measures to ensure consistent and extensive supply of urgent humanitarian aid to Palestinian residents of Gaza. According to the NGOs, the petition presented factual evidence through a series of reports and testimonies describing systematic destruction of food production in Gaza, deliberate attacks on the healthcare system, as well as damage to civilian infrastructure.
• On 18 May, Peace Now published the article “All paths lead to annexation”, stating that between mid-2023 and mid-2024, Israeli settlers constructed approximately 139 new roads in the occupied West Bank, totaling 116.4 km, with nearly two-thirds of the road length passing through privately owned Palestinian land. The NGO added that the road construction occurred alongside military activity that had closed dozens, if not hundreds, of access roads to Palestinians since October 7 between Palestinian settlements and their agricultural lands.
• On 17 May, Al Mezan issued a press release warning the international community that Israel had begun to execute a plan of territorial takeover in Gaza. The NGO added that satellite imagery, eyewitness and victims’ testimonies, and video footage pointed to a coordinated and escalating campaign of elimination, and called for immediate and concrete actions to stop what it considers to be an ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people.
• On 15 May, the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies published a statement from 27 civil society organisations calling for international action against a series of legislative initiatives and policy measures, currently at the Israeli parliament, which the NGOs consider to be posing existential threats to the survival and mandate of Human Rights Organisations in Israel and the OPT. In particular, the statement warned that a new directive granted Israeli authorities the power to deny or revoke the registration in Israel of INGOs operating in the OPT and to deny work visa to international personnel based on vaguely defined political criteria. Badil published an article on this issue as well.

Africa, Asia and Europe

• On 20 May, Agence Média Palestine published an article (in French) stating that Palestinians in the occupied West Bank have recently been subjected to a new wave of violence, with numerous raids by the Israeli army and also by Israeli settlers that have terrorized the population and caused numerous Palestinian casualties. The article reads that settler attacks have taken place amid a significant strengthening of military barriers deployed between West Bank towns, which impeded the movement of Palestinian vehicles.
• On 16 May, the Palestinian Return Centre informed that it had sent a briefing to Members of the United Kingdom Parliament, following the strike by Israeli forces on 13 May on the European Hospital in Gaza. The attack killed at least 28 people and injured dozens more, including patients, medical staff, journalists, and British medical volunteers. The NGO added that the briefing had noted that the hospital compound was struck by six bombs in quick succession, destroying its medical infrastructure and rendering it completely out of service. As a result, thousands of patients – particularly cancer patients – had been deprived of access to life-saving care, as the entire healthcare system in Gaza neared total collapse.
• On 15 May, Diakonia published the statement “Grave Concern Over Conditions of Life Threatening Palestinians’ Survival”, to mark Nakba Day, which, the NGO added, commemorated the forcible displacement and dispossession of Palestinian communities as well as the destruction of Palestinian villages during the period 1947-1949. The NGO stated that Palestinians’ continued experience of dispossession and displacement in the ensuing decades, prompting reference to an “ongoing Nakba”, adding that conditions in the OPT had deteriorated even further, since the start of the hostilities in October 2023, giving rise to grave concern that Palestinians were being deliberately deprived of resources necessary to sustain life. The Palestine Land Society published an article on this topic as well.

North America

• On 19 May, The Jerusalem Fund published the article “Israel Targets Palestinian Boys”, stating that from October 2023 to April 2025, Israeli forces and settlers killed at least
  180 Palestinian male minors in the occupied West Bank, in the vast majority of cases with the use of live ammunition. The NGO added that children had the recognized right to protection under international humanitarian law and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The article also stated that Israel was holding more than 110 children in administrative detention without trial or charge in prisons where their rights were violated on a daily basis.

• On 15 May, Human Rights Watch published the article “Gaza: Latest Israeli Plan Inches Closer to Extermination”. The NGO stated that the Israeli government’s plan to demolish what remained of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure and concentrate the Palestinian population into a small area would amount to an escalation of its ongoing crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing, and acts of genocide, and called on all parties to the Genocide Convention to do more to prevent further atrocities. Jewish Voice for Peace, Churches for Middle East Peace and J Street, among other NGOs, published articles and statements on this issue as well.

United Nations

• On 20 May, UN experts issued a statement condemning the latest attacks on UNRWA schools in Gaza and the storming and forcible closure of UN schools in East Jerusalem by Israeli occupation forces. The experts added that these attacks were an assault on the right to safe education and a blatant violation of international law, all the more in the context of an unlawful occupation. The statement further reads that armed Israeli forces stormed three UNRWA schools on 8 May in Shu’fat refugee camp, in East Jerusalem, while classes were in session, violently evicting over 550 Palestinian children, some as young as six, from their classrooms.
• On 20 May, UNRWA released its 2024 Health Report, highlighting the toll on Palestine Refugees and the dedication of UNRWA health staff working under some of the most dangerous and difficult conditions in the Agency’s history. UNRWA informed that medical consultations averaged up to 15,000 per day across 22 health centers before the war in Gaza started in October 2023, whereas, by the end of 2024, daily consultations had increased to nearly 18,000, with only 7 to 9 UNRWA health centers still functioning in the Gaza Strip.
• On 19 May, Tom Fletcher, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator issued a statement welcoming the decision by Israeli authorities to temporarily allow the resumption of delivery of limited aid into Gaza, following 11 weeks of complete blockade, and amid a spike in the military offensive.
  Fletcher added that nine trucks were cleared to enter on that day, via the Kerem Shalom crossing, but stressed that this was “a drop in the ocean of what is urgently needed”.
• On 15-16 May, the United Nations Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People convened its 1st 2025 Civil Society Consultations on “International Action Towards Ending the Nakba and Realizing the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People”. Experts from Palestine, Israel, Africa, Europe and the Americas delivered briefings on recent efforts and findings by civil society organizations and UN Special Procedures, and brainstormed on further coordination and cooperation between Member States and civil society, including in preparation for the High-Level Conference on the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine in June 2025.