NGO Action News – 4 December 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 3 December, Al-Haq published an article to mark the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, highlighting the particularly high proportion of Persons with disabilities among the wounded during the conflict in Gaza. The NGO also portrayed the situation of Palestinians whose legs have been amputated as a result of Israeli bombardments and live fire injuries.
• On 3 December, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights published the article “Israel’s Violations of Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law in the West Bank in November 2025”. Among the violations, the NGO reported widespread settler attacks against Palestinian civilians and their property, during which Israeli settlers established six new settlement outposts. During the same period, the Israeli security forces intensified the number of checkpoints and roadblocks across the West Bank, further tightening restrictions on freedom of movement between Palestinian cities and villages, according to the NGO.
• On 3 December, 7amleh reported on its second annual European conference, convened in Brussels. Under the theme “Protect or Perpetuate? The European Union’s Choice on Palestinian Digital Freedoms”, the conference brought together leading voices from academia, civil society, journalism, EU institutions, and the tech sector to examine how Europe’s regulatory choices and political climate are shaping Palestinian freedom of expression, access to information, and participation in the digital public sphere.
• On 3 December, Zochrot organized the first webinar in the series “Return and Resistance from Within – Two years of genocide, 78 years of the ongoing Nakba”. According to the NGO, the four sessions of this webinar series, that will end on 21 December, will explore the Right of Return in its historical, legal, and moral foundations, and will situate Gaza within the broader story of Palestinian dispossession, resistance, and justice.
• On 2 December, Al-Haq published the article “Palestinian Civil Society Organisations Expose Israel’s Systematic Torture of Palestinians before the UN Committee against Torture”. The NGO informed that the Committee Against Torture outlined on 28 November its Concluding Observations on four countries, including Israel. The NGOs Al-Haq, Al-Mezan and Addameer submitted two joint alternative reports to inform the Committee’s findings. According to the NGOs, the reports highlighted Israel’s use of torture as a state policy against arbitrarily detained Palestinian men, women and children. They also drew attention to Israeli policies inflicting serious and lasting psychological suffering outside the context of detention, namely Palestinian home demolitions, mass forcible transfers, the use of Palestinians as human shields and the use of military dogs to attack and terrorise Palestinians.
• On 29 November, Adalah published an article to mark the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, amid an unprecedented intensification in Israeli violence against Palestinians, spanning from the besieged Gaza Strip to the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem. The NGO stated that this violence can only be interpreted as a systemic and deliberate campaign by Israel aimed at the erasure of Palestinian identity, history, and physical existence.
• On 26 November, Gisha informed that it has filed, with four other Israeli human rights organisations, a petition on 20 November to the Israeli High Court of Justice demanding that Israel immediately resume the evacuation of patients from the Gaza Strip for lifesaving treatment in hospitals in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.  According to the petition, approximately 16,500 Gaza residents, many of them women, children, and elderly individuals, are currently at risk of death because the medical care they urgently need is not available in the Strip. The organizations stressed that Gaza’s healthcare system has been decimated since the outbreak of the war, while Israel, which controls the crossings and holds exclusive authority to permit medical evacuations, continued to block access to essential treatment.

Africa, Asia and Europe

• On 1 December, Amnesty International published an article on the beginning of the 24th Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), calling on States to firmly oppose the U.S. government’s threats and sanctions against the ICC, following the Court’s proceeding against Israeli officials, and protect the Court’s ability to pursue its independent and impartial mandate. The NGO also published an article, on 27 November, stating that more than a month after a ceasefire was announced, Israeli authorities were still committing genocide against Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip, by continuing to deliberately inflict conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction.
• On 25 November, the Palestinian Return Center published the report “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation: A Structural Analysis of Ground-Level Genocide”. Following the announcement that the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has ended its operations in the Gaza Strip, this report argued that this entity presented as a relief initiative became intertwined with security and military structures involving U.S. private contractors and former intelligence officers. According to the report, the foundation’s aid-distribution mechanisms did not alleviate humanitarian needs but reshaped civilian movement and access to assistance in ways that resulted in widespread violations and significant civilian casualties.

North America

• On 3 December, the Foundation for Middle East Peace (FMEP) published the webinar “Surrealism against fascism – a conversation with Naomi Klein”. Ahmed Moor, FMEP Fellow, spoke with Ms. Klein about her new essay, “Surrealism Against Fascism” and the questions on the need for new institutions, and what happens next in Palestine.
• On 2 December, J Street issued a statement stressing that conditions in Gaza remained dire besides the ceasefire, and should not become a new prolonged reality as continued incidents of violence, including the killing of 2 young Palestinian brothers ages 8 and 11, highlighted the need for a change. Since the ceasefire, more than 350 Palestinians have been killed, the NGO added, calling for expanded humanitarian aid to Gaza.

United Nations

• On 4 December, the UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People organized a screening of the film “The Voice of Hind Rajab” at UN Headquarters in New York, followed by a discussion with the director, Oscar-nominated filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania. The panel discussion was broadcast live on UN Web TV. The film blends actual recordings and scripted performances to tell the devastating story of Hind Rajab, a Palestinian girl trapped and dying under Israeli military fire, and the first responders who tried to save her. “The Voice of Hind Rajab” won the Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival.
• On 1 December, Secretary-General António Guterres sent a message to the United Nations International Media Seminar on Peace in the Middle East, highlighting that journalists in Gaza have been facing the same risks and realities as the people they cover – including displacement, famine and death. More than 260 media workers have been killed in Gaza since 7 October 2023, making this the deadliest conflict for journalists in decades. Ambassador Coly Seck, Chair of the Palestinian Rights Committee gave his remarks during the event as well, stating that journalists were being targeted for bearing witness and informing the world about the realities in Gaza.