NGO Action News – 28 August 2025 

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 27 August, Al Mezan Center for Human Rights issued the press release “Al Mezan Refutes Israeli Claims of ‘Empty Areas’ in Gaza, Calls for an End to Forced Displacement” in which the NGO countered the claims made by the Israeli military’s Arabic spokesperson that there were “empty areas” in southern Gaza to accommodate the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who would be forcibly displaced should Israel proceed with its plan to take over Gaza City. Al Mezan stressed that these assertions were intentionally misleading, serving only to deceive public opinion and to justify Israel’s policy of mass forced displacement. 
• On 27 August, Yesh Din published the article “Uniformed Theft: Pillage of Palestinians’ cash and property by Israeli soldiers and police officers in the West Bank” in which the NGO argues that pillage of Palestinians’ property has become an inseparable part of Israeli control over Palestinians; that it complements a broader movement of institutionalized, systemic pillage and dispossession of Palestinians in the West Bank by the State of Israel; and that it is accomplished by exercising Israeli law and military legislation, which permit expropriating land, declaring state land, and retroactively authorizing settlements and outposts built on privately-owned Palestinian land. 
• On 27 August, the Institute for Palestine Studies published the article “To Resist is to Exist: Living and Creating Under Israeli Occupation” on how Palestinians in the occupied West Bank use art to endure and resist the occupation and encroachment by illegal Israeli settlements. 
• On 25 August, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights issued the press release “Compounded Crime: Naser Hospital Transformed into Killing Field as IOF Target Patients, Journalists, and Rescuers All At Once”. The NGO emphasized that the deliberate and systematic killing of journalists, medics and rescue teams was part of an ongoing crime of genocide in Gaza and stressed that the continued failure of the international justice system to hold Israeli leaders accountable for their crimes had emboldened them to persist in committing further violations and crimes against journalists and their families, carried out in complete impunity.
• On 24 August, Gisha issued the statement “Gisha and partners demand that Israel stop using aid as tool of forcible transfer”. The NGO informed that together with Adalah, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, HaMoked, and Physicians for Human Rights Israel it had warned Israel’s Prime Minister, Defense Minister, and COGAT in a letter that, if implemented, the decision to selectively distribute aid constitutes a war crime and the crime against humanity of forcible transfer.
• On 22 August, the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies issued the statement “Israel’s New Gaza Campaign: Escalating Genocide and Illegal Occupation Amid Humanitarian Catastrophe”, in which CIHRS expresses its concern over the ongoing Israeli actions throughout the OPT and lists a number of calls on States including inter alia to pressure Israel to halt its offensive on Gaza, including its operation to seize Gaza City and push for an immediate and permanent ceasefire, and, in line with the ICJ’s Advisory Opinion, urgently review all relations with Israel and suspend those that support and enable its violations of international law, including its continued occupation of Palestinian territories, illegal settlements and apartheid.
• On 22 August, BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights released the brochure, “Understanding the Chain of States’ Complicity in the Israeli Genocide”. In the document, the NGO compressed the evidence and arguments from its research project “Colonial States’ Complicity in Gaza: Arming and Shielding Genocide”.
• On 21 August, B’Tselem issued the video report “Total blockade and death traps: How Israel is starving the Gaza Strip” in which the NGO describes what it calls “Israel’s system of starvation in Gaza” outlining it with videos, testimonies and maps, stating that “this proves the political and military leadership’s intent to eradicate the continuation of Palestinian existence in Gaza.” 

Africa, Asia and Europe 

• On 22 August, Amnesty International issued the statement “States must act now to halt Israel’s military takeover of Gaza City as famine officially declared”. In it the NGO stated that “Today’s official declaration of famine is a devastating confirmation of what humanitarian and human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, have been warning of for months, and a scathing indictment of the failure of states to press Israel into ending its genocide in the occupied Gaza Strip. […] All states and actors must forcefully demand that Israel ends this abomination by ensuring the unimpeded flow of aid into and across Gaza, a total lifting of Israel’s illegal blockade, dismantling the deadly militarized aid distribution system and allowing the UN and other trusted humanitarian organizations to distribute aid safely and without arbitrary restrictions.”
• On 22 August, the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) warned in the press release “Gaza: Israel’s military assault on famine-stricken Gaza City will lead to countless deaths” that Israel’s expanded military operations in Gaza City would cause mass civilian deaths and intensify famine amid the collapse of humanitarian access as civilians already weakened by hunger and repeated displacements cannot withstand further bombardment. 

North America  

• On 26 August, Human Rights Watch issued the press release “Gaza: US Forces Can Be Liable for Assisting Israeli War Crimes” in which the NGO outlined that direct participation by US forces in military operations in Gaza since October 2023, including by providing intelligence for Israeli strikes and conducting extensive coordination and planning, has made the United States a party to the conflict between Israel and Palestinian armed groups, and that as a warring party, US forces could be jointly responsible for participating in laws-of-war violations by Israeli forces. 
• On 26 August, the Foundation for Middle East Peace (FMEP) published the video “How Israel Targets Palestinian Journalists in Gaza” in which FMEP Fellow Peter Beinart speaks with Laila Al-Arian, the executive producer for Fault Lines, an award-winning current affairs program on Al Jazeera English, about what it’s like to be a journalist in Gaza.
• On 26 August, Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP) published a joint letter “The Latest Planned Israeli Military Offensive in Gaza City Must Be Halted” in which the NGO had joined twenty church-based organizations in calling for Israel to halt its planned military offensive in Gaza City. With famine already declared in Gaza, further military operations would only cause further suffering and death for a civilian population without anywhere else to go and “this displacement will result in a modern-day death march that is clearly intended to ethnically cleanse half of the Gaza Strip and compress all of Gaza’s population into a tiny sliver of territory incapable of sustaining life.” 

United Nations 

• On 27 August, the UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People issued the press release “UN Palestinian Rights Committee Bureau Calls for Urgent Action to End Gaza Famine” in which the Committee condemned, in strongest terms, the deliberate use of deprivation and starvation by Israel, the occupying Power, as a weapon against the Palestinian people, which was a grave breach of international law, and called on States to act without delay to fulfil their legal obligations towards bringing a rapid end to this catastrophe and illegal situation as a whole.
• On 27 August, during the Security Council Briefing on the Situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian Question, Deputy Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Ramiz Alakbarov stated that the world looked on in horror as the situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory continued to deteriorate to levels not seen in recent history. Despite a renewed push by the mediators to reach a ceasefire and hostage release deal in Gaza, a breakthrough remained elusive. What was needed now was bold action to resolve the conflict, end the occupation and re-establish a political horizon.
• On 22 August, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher, in remarks to the press said the famine, which the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) Famine Review Committee (FRC) had declared  is taking place in Gaza, was entirely preventable, saying food could not get through to the Palestinian territory “because of systematic obstruction by Israel.” This man-made catastrophic famine could have been prevented by a steady flow of humanitarian aid into the enclave, Mr. Fletcher pointed out. “Yet food stacks up at borders because of systematic obstruction by Israel,” he said. “It is a famine within a few 100 meters of food in a fertile land.” He underscored that the famine in Gaza was “caused by cruelty, justified by revenge, enabled by indifference and sustained by complicity.”