Permanent Observer highlights the destruction of shelters, schools and hospitals in Gaza – Letter from the State of Palestine (A/ES-10/1002-S/2024/547)

Identical letters dated 12 July 2024 from the Permanent Observer of the State of Palestine to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General, the President of the General Assembly and the President of the Security Council

I am compelled to write again days since my last letter as the horrifying situation being faced by the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip worsens by the minute as Israel continues its genocidal onslaught.

Though a month has already passed since the Security Council adopted resolution 2735 (2024), and over nine months of these horrors have been endured, there is still no ceasefire, no protection for civilians and no reprieve for our people from Israel’s vengeful, sadistic wrath, sparing no man, woman or child.

While struggling to cope with starvation, dehydration, illness and disease, severe injuries and disabilities inflicted by Israeli attacks and deprivation of all other life essentials, Palestinian civilians in Gaza continue being forced by Israel to endure repeated displacements, running in fear from one place to another, amid ruins and devastation, in a place where absolutely nowhere is safe and even humanitarian zones and United Nations shelters are turned by Israel into killing zones.

As alarmingly stressed by the Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini: “Gaza is decimated. More than two million people are trapped in a living hell. They have been displaced repeatedly across a ravaged and increasingly lawless territory.”

This is the reality that Israel has created in Gaza – hell on Earth – as its politicians and military commanders vowed to do in their own words. Acting on those words, Israel is not only exacting collective punishment on the Palestinian people, but also undeniably seeking to cause as much pain, loss and suffering as possible, deliberately inflicting death, destruction, suffocation and chaos all across Gaza.

No sooner does a family find refuge in an UNRWA school, then it is bombed by the Israeli occupying forces. No sooner does a family find refuge in a tent encampment, then it is set ablaze by Israeli missile strikes. No sooner do casualties and patients reach a hospital, then it is attacked and destroyed by Israeli soldiers. No sooner do families scrape together the means to live in their place of refuge – some food, some water, some hygiene and bedding supplies – then they are forced to “evacuate” by the commands of the Israeli occupying forces demanding that they leave the area, exacerbating what is already a massive humanitarian catastrophe.

The Secretary-General’s statement on 12 July clearly expressed this painful and tragic reality: “Just when we thought it couldn’t get any worse in Gaza – somehow, appallingly, civilians are being pushed into ever deeper circles of hell. … Palestinians in Gaza keep being forced to move like human pinballs across a landscape of destruction and death.”

This inhumane, illegal, repeated forced displacement of civilians is happening all across Gaza, causing constant turmoil and trauma, especially to children and other vulnerable civilians, including the sick, wounded and disabled. Even northern Gaza, where residents were forced by Israel to evacuate in October 2023, is now under evacuation orders again. Yet, the reality is that there is nowhere for the people to go, nowhere that they will be safe. Israel has destroyed the majority of Gaza and whatever is left standing it considers to be a legitimate target as it persists with its systematic, grave breaches of international law, shredding international humanitarian law and human rights law and all protections for civilians.

Civilians and the doctors, nurses, medics and humanitarian personnel caring for them are forced to flee for their lives over and over, chased by a ruthless occupying army that kills children, women and men without hesitation, without remorse. UNRWA schools sheltering the displaced are relentlessly targeted, with two thirds of the schools either destroyed or severely damaged by Israeli bombardments.

The most recent such attack occurred two days ago when Israel bombed Awdah school in Abasan, east of Khan Younis, killing 30 Palestinian children, women and men and wounding nearly 60 more people, following a series of attacks on other UNRWA schools, including on 6 July in Nuseirat refugee camp where 16 Palestinians were killed. As stated by Commissioner-General Lazzarini, “schools have gone from safe places of education and hope for children to overcrowded shelters and often ending up a place of death and misery”.

The international community must put a stop to this inhumanity. There must be consequences for Israel’s crimes and terror against the Palestinian people to the fullest extent of the law. The Security Council and General Assembly must act to hold Israel accountable for its breaches of the Charter and absolute contempt.

We call again, with utmost urgency, on the international community to stop Israel’s slaughter and torment of the Palestinian people and to ensure their protection in respect of international law and the binding provisional measures orders of the International Court of Justice. The Palestinian civilian population in Occupied Palestine, including in the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, cannot be excluded from the protections accorded to all civilians under international humanitarian law. The High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention have clear obligations in this regard to respect and ensure respect for the Convention in all circumstances.

There must be a ceasefire without another day of delay. This horrific, immoral, gruesome war being waged by Israel in Gaza must be stopped, and there must be accountability for the war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide that it has perpetrated against the Palestinian people across decades. Our people are pleading for these calls not only to be heard, but also to be answered now to save the millions of Palestinians struggling to survive under this illegal, immoral, abhorrent Israeli occupation.

The present letter is in follow-up to our 842 letters on the ongoing crisis in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, which constitutes the territory of the State of Palestine. These letters, dated from 29 September 2000 (A/55/432-S/2000/921) to 8 July 2024 (A/ES-10/1001-S/2024/533) constitute a basic record of the crimes being committed by Israel, the occupying Power, against the Palestinian people since September 2000. For all of these war crimes, acts of State terrorism and systematic human rights violations against our people, Israel, the occupying Power, must be held accountable and the perpetrators must be brought to justice.

I should be grateful if you would arrange to have the present letter distributed as a document of the tenth emergency special session of the General Assembly, under agenda item 5, and of the Security Council.

(Signed) Riyad Mansour

Minister

Permanent Observer