The casualty toll in Gaza is nearing 200,000 people, blockade of Gaza must be lifted, and ceasefire must be demanded – Letter from the State of Palestine (A/ES-10/1039-S/2025/400)

20 June 2025

Identical letters dated 20 June 2025 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

It has been 620 days of Israel’s genocidal war on the Palestinian people; Israel, a cruel, deliberate and systematic military campaign wreaking death and destruction across Occupied Palestine.

Gaza remains the epicentre of unspeakable horrors and atrocities being perpetrated by the Israeli occupying forces against Palestinian civilians, while at the same time the Israeli occupying forces and settler terror gang intensify their rampages against the rest of the population suffering under this illegal, colonial, apartheid occupation in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

No human security, no human dignity, no mercy for the entire Palestinian people that Israel has viciously dehumanized and subjugated in this cruel Nakba across decades, now a genocide in plain sight of the world.

Israel is killing children.

Israel is killing women.

Israel is killing men.

Israel is killing youth.

Israel is killing elderly persons.

Israel is killing disabled persons.

Israel is killing humanitarian workers.

Israel is killing journalists.

Israel is killing paramedics.

Israel is massacring Palestinian civilians every single day.

Israel is besieging and starving our people.

Israel is destroying their homes, hospitals, communities and lives.

Israel is forcibly displacing Palestinians.

Israel is ethnically cleansing Palestine.

Israel is traumatizing our people, sowing mass terror, chaos, fear, despair and human suffering.

The world cannot continue allowing this rogue State to murder, maim, destroy and erase life. Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people must be stopped.

What more has to be said, or seen, to convince the Security Council and all States to act to save the millions of human lives at risk and to preserve international peace and security, which are under grave and imminent threat?

The facts are clear. As stated by Commissioner Navi Pillay, Chair of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel: “the goal of the Israeli government is abundantly clear: the destruction of life in Gaza”.

Israel actually does not hide its criminal objectives. Rather, its war criminal Prime Minister and politicians brag of them, challenging and mocking the international community’s failure to act. Free of consequences for its rogue behaviour, Israel persists undeterred, using violence, terror and starvation as its weapons of choice to advance its nefarious goals of depopulating Palestine and cementing its domination and annexation, in grave breach of international law.

The past days have again exposed the utter monstrosity of these schemes as Israeli soldiers continued firing upon hungry and desperate Palestinians trying to get food aid to feed their children and families, some killed with the bags of flour they collected still in their hands.

And, all the while, Israel continues systematically bombarding Gaza with missile strikes, tanks and drones, leaving the Palestinian civilian population with no safe haven, concentrating and caging them in ever-shrinking spaces, with over 82 per cent of Gaza forcibly “evacuated” by Israel or declared a no-go military zone, as the occupying Power continues its blatant displacement campaign.

Every single day Israel causes at least 100 Palestinian casualties, whether slaughtered at so-called “aid distribution sites” of the sham Gaza Humanitarian Foundation or in bombings of what shelters remain in Gaza, of hospitals and of tents, where Palestinians continue to be burned alive and bodies shredded to pieces, soaking our land with the blood of innocents.

Yesterday, 19 June, 112 Palestinians were murdered by the Israeli occupying forces as they waited to collect humanitarian aid. This was preceded by an attack on 17 June, where Israeli tanks fired on a crowd of people trying to get aid from a truck, killing at least 70 people.

Since the Gaza Humanitarian Fund began operations, Israel has killed more than 500 Palestinians at these “aid sites”, turning them into open death traps, while at the same time it continues to obstruct the United Nations, including the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), and legitimate international aid organizations from carrying out their humanitarian missions, exacerbating the humanitarian and human catastrophe it has deliberately inflicted.

The casualty toll in Gaza is nearing 200,000 people, the vast majority women and children. As of today, more than 55,700 Palestinians have been confirmed killed by Israel and over 130,000 have been injured, many mortally wounded and struggling to survive.

Since 18 March alone, when Israel decided to break the ceasefire and not only resume but escalate its attacks, over 5,400 Palestinians have been killed and 18,000 injured. And, still, the Security Council continues to fail in its responsibility to stop this aggression, leaving its resolutions unimplemented and brazenly violated, its authority flagrantly challenged by Israel, its credibility in tatters.

In the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, casualties also continue to mount, with over 950 Palestinians, including over 200 children, killed by Israel since October 2023. Every day that Israel’s murderous aggression and illegal occupation are allowed to continue brings only more death and injury of Palestinian civilians in the Israeli occupying forces’ military raids and settler attacks, more Palestinians abducted and thrown into Israeli jails, more properties seized, more homes demolished, more land stolen and settlements constructed, more Palestinian families displaced, more attacks on our holy sites, more trauma, torture and torment for our people.

We call again on the international community to act now to halt Israel’s genocidal war and end this vile, illegal occupation. States must act on their legal and humanitarian obligations in the face of these heinous crimes. All legitimate political, diplomatic, legal and economic measures, including sanctions, must be taken.

An immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire must be demanded for Gaza and throughout the rest of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem. Israel’s blockade of Gaza must be lifted and immediate, full and impartial humanitarian access, including by UNRWA and all other humanitarian agencies, must be ensured for all parts of Gaza, in accordance with international humanitarian law and other legal obligations in the face of Israel’s systematic starvation and deprivation of the Palestinian population. Moreover, the listing once again of the Israeli occupying forces among the serial violators of child rights must prompt even more urgent action to halt all arms transfers to Israel and to protect Palestinian civilians.

Security Council resolutions, including resolution 2735 (2024), must be implemented. All relevant General Assembly resolutions must be implemented, including resolution ES-10/27, adopted on 12 June 2025, by an overwhelming majority. The International Court of Justice provisional measures orders must be implemented and its advisory opinions must be respected. Israel cannot be allowed to violate every single tenet of international law, every Charter obligation, every single demand by the responsible United Nations organs, every single authoritative determination, and effectively the international consensus for a just, peaceful settlement of the Palestine question and the two-State solution, without consequences.

Every single perpetrator of these war crimes, crimes against humanity and acts of genocide against the Palestinian people must be held accountable.

We echo the warning of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, that “disturbing, dehumanizing rhetoric from senior Israeli government officials is reminiscent of the gravest of crimes”, that must compel the international community to act now to stop these atrocities.

As stressed by the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People and Other Arabs of the Occupied Territories following its recent mission to the region, where it was again prevented by Israel from accessing the Occupied Palestinian Territory: “Israel clearly feels it has full impunity to commit horrendous crimes and will never be held accountable for its actions, policies and practices … The occupation must end. Only when this happens will grave human rights violations end”.

The present letter is in follow-up to our 869 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 11 June 2025 (A/ES-10/1038-S/2025/376), 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. This illegal colonial occupation and apartheid regime must end now.

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