(November 26, 2025)
In a statement, CAIR said:
“The Israeli occupation’s brutal, massive assault on the West Bank is its latest act of ethnic cleansing and mass murder. The Israeli government is seeking to remove the Palestinian people from their land bit by bit, not only in Gaza but across Palestine. We call on President Trump and the international community to demand an end to the Israeli government’s out-of-control violence.”
RAMALLAH, November 28, 2025 (WAFA) – Nabil Abu Rudeineh, spokesperson for President Mahmoud Abbas, said today that Israel’s ongoing war against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including Jerusalem, will not achieve security or stability for anyone, and will not grant legitimacy to any measures taken by Israeli authorities.
He stated that the continued Israeli military offensive in Tubas for the third consecutive day, along with the aggression on Jenin and its refugee camp and on Tulkarm and its two refugee camps, will keep the region trapped in a cycle of violence and escalation.
The most disturbing aspect is the total impunity given to Israel by the international community – Israel’s Western allies in particular – for the genocide in Gaza and ongoing attacks in the occupied West Bank, he added.
“What they’re lacking is the political will to act and the moral courage to act, and that’s really shameful,” said Parnes.
The experts urged Member States to act decisively to end the pattern of systematic violations of international law and suffering in occupied Palestine and restore international peace and security.
They called for the following urgent measures:
– Guaranteeing safe humanitarian access through UN-supervised land and naval corridors, including temporary housing before winter;
– Opening humanitarian corridors toward the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Israel for the wounded, sick, older persons, persons with disabilities, pregnant women, and children;
– Imposing sanctions on Israel for continued violations of international law and illegal occupation;
– A comprehensive arms embargo on Israel;
– Full and free access to international media to the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including throughout Gaza.
– Ensuring that independent, international investigations are conducted into serious violations of international law, including the killing of civilians in the Gaza Strip, and that prosecutions are initiated under universal jurisdiction;
– Considering a UN-led international intervention if attacks persist and the humanitarian situation deteriorates further.
*The experts:
– Francesca Albanese: Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967;
– George Katrougalos, Independent Expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order
– Ashwini K.P., Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance
– Olivier De Schutter: Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
– Morris Tidball-Binz, Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions
– Ben Saul, Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism
– Irene Khan, Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression
– Paula Gaviria, Special Rapporteur on the human rights of internally displaced persons
– Tlaleng Mofokeng, UN Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health
– Heba Hagrass, Special Rapporteur on the rights of persons with disabilities
– Farida Shaheed, Special Rapporteur on the right to education
– Michael Fakhri, Special Rapporteur on the right to food
– Pedro Arrojo Agudo, Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
– Gina Romero, Special Rapporteur on the Rights to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and of Association
– Siobhán Mullally, the Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially women and children
– Reem Alsalem, Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, its causes and consequences
– Nicolas Levrat, Special Rapporteur on minority issues
– Michelle Small (Chair-Rapporteur), Ravindran Daniel, Jovana Jezdimirovic Ranito, Joana de Deus Pereira, Andrés Macías Tolosa, Working Group on the use of mercenaries
– Carlos Duarte (Chair), Working Group on the rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas
– Ivana Krstić (Vice-Chair), Dorothy Estrada Tanck, Haina Lu, and Laura Nyirinkindi, Working Group on discrimination against women and girls
(October 20, 2025)
Summary
The ongoing genocide in Gaza is a collective crime, sustained by the complicity of influential Third States that have enabled longstanding systemic violations of international law by Israel. Framed by colonial narratives that dehumanize the Palestinians, this live-streamed atrocity has been facilitated through Third States’ direct support, material aid, diplomatic protection and, in some cases, active participation. It has exposed an unprecedented chasm between peoples and their governments, betraying the trust on which global peace and security rest. The world now stands on a knife-edge between the collapse of the international rule of law and hope for renewal. Renewal is only possible if complicity is confronted, responsibilities are met and justice is upheld.
(…)
25. Certain non-Western States have turned to international courts to seek accountability and pressurize Israel to cease its actions. While only 13 States have supported South Africa before the ICJ, most Western States have persistently denied genocide. None have joined Nicaragua against Germany at the ICJ, or invoked domestic laws against complicit corporations or individuals. Only seven referred the situation to the ICC, many sought to undermine its arrest warrants, and at least 37 States were non-committal or critical, signalling intent to evade arrest obligations.
(…)
. Military Ties: providing the means of destruction
32. While UN resolutions have called for arms embargoes on Israel since 1976, many States have continued supplying it with military support and arms transfers. Israel is disproportionately dependent on weapons imports, with the proportion of their total trade more than double the OECD average, and over four times greater than that of the United States. This international supply has continued, even as the evidence of genocide has mounted, with the United States, Germany and Italy among the largest suppliers. Only a few Western States, notably Spain and Slovenia, have cancelled contracts and imposed embargoes.
The UN special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, has accused major European powers, including the UK, Italy and Germany, of complicity in the genocide in Gaza and warned that their government officials should face legal consequences.
In an interview with the Expert Witness podcast on 3 November, Albanese discussed the findings of her latest report, titled Gaza Genocide: A Collective Crime, where she cited evidence of the alleged responsibility of 63 states for enabling Israeli breaches of international law.
In Gaza, we are used to waking up to the sounds of explosions, counting the days between meals, and cycling constantly between fear and hope. We thought our pain was unlike any other in the world until we saw Sudan burning under the same silence. There, as here, people die from hunger and under rubble, cameras and lenses absent, as if pain in the Global South is not meant to be heard in the North.
In Sudan and Gaza, children are snatched from their mothers’ arms before they even know what safety feels like. Last Tuesday alone, some 460 people were reportedly killed by paramilitary forces in the city of El-Fasher. Estimates put the rate of displacement in Gaza at 90%; in Sudan, more than 14 million people have been displaced. Homes are destroyed, access to clean water is severely limited, food remains deeply scarce, and the wounded lie scattered on the ground without medical care, just as we witnessed in our small city on the Mediterranean coast.
Yet what hurts more than bombing or hunger is silence.
(November 2, 2025)
Days after Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) seized el-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, in a violent assault that included the killing of more than 400 people at a hospital, aid groups warn that tens of thousands of civilians are at risk amid continuing violence, including some that may be trapped in el-Fasher and others harmed while fleeing.
(Novemebr 2, 2025)
A total of 70,894 people have been displaced since the RSF took control, it said.
However, less than 6,000 have made it to the nearest camp in Tawila, 65 kilometers (40 miles) away, said Shashwat Saraf, Sudan director for the Norwegian Refugee Council, which runs the camp.
Almost 1,000 people arrived in the last three days, he said.
“The numbers are still very few. We are not seeing the hundreds of thousands that we were expecting. If people are still in el-Fasher, it will be very difficult for them to survive,” he told The Associated Press by phone from Tawila.
“What is unfolding in El Fasher recalls the horrors Darfur was subjected to twenty years ago,” Mr. Fletcher said, referring to the atrocities of the early 2000s that shocked the world and eventually led to International Criminal Court indictments.
“But somehow today we are seeing a very different global reaction – one of resignation,” he continued. “This is also a crisis of apathy.”
“The Sudan crisis is, at its core, a failure of protection, and our responsibility to uphold international law,” Mr. Fletcher said. “Atrocities are committed with unashamed expectation of impunity…the world has failed an entire generation.”
(September 17, 2025)
On 5 September 2025, a group of 45 United Nations human rights experts, composed of UN Special Rapporteurs, UN independent experts and UN Working Group members, called the UN General Assembly to invoke the Uniting for Peace resolution in order to respond to the escalating famine and genocidal conditions in Gaza. In their joint statement, the experts urged the Assembly to (i) recommend a peace operation, (ii) demand that all crossings into Gaza be opened under UN supervision, (iii) suspend humanitarian mechanisms that had proved dangerous or ineffective, (iv) call upon Mediterranean states to deploy humanitarian naval missions, (v) authorize UN-led humanitarian convoys to supervise all crossings, and (vi) demand a permanent ceasefire alongside the release of detainees and hostages.
Statement summary
Not yet available.
Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud has urged the global community to act decisively to stop “Israeli aggression”, which could have “grave consequences”.
“The failure of international community to take firm actions to end the Israeli aggression and violation will only cause further instability and insecurity regionally and globally,” he told the UN General Assembly.
“Such an action will have grave consequences and will escalate war crimes and acts of genocide.”
United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca P. Albanese, and Swedish environmental activist, Greta Thunberg, speak about reported attack on Flotilla.
Thunberg said on Tuesday (September 23) that symbolic gestures like the recognition of the state of Palestine would „lead nowhere unless they are accompanied by real action“, as she sailed aboard a humanitarian flotilla heading to Gaza.
In 1994, the world failed to stop genocide in Rwanda. In 1995, we failed in Sbrebrenica. Today, in Gaza, we are again being tested. We must act now!
Five British MPs have written to Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper urging the government to „urgently pursue UN-led military intervention“ to stop Israel‘s genocide in Gaza.
The letter by independent MP Adnan Hussain has been signed by three of his fellow members of the parliamentary Independent Alliance – Ayoub Khan, Iqbal Mohamed and Shockat Adam – as well as Liberal Democrat MP Andrew George.
We demand:
The immediate establishment of an international military force to protect Palestinian civilians.
Immediate cessation of all military actions by Israel against the civilian populations of Gaza, East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
Enforcement of United Nations resolutions and international legal frameworks that recognize the rights of the Palestinian people to peace, security, and self-determination.
Accountability for those responsible for war crimes and violations of human rights.
We call on governments worldwide to stand against these atrocities and fulfill their moral and legal obligations to protect the Palestinian people .
(November 3, 1950)
1. Resolves that if the Security Council, because of lack of unanimity of the permanent members, fails to exercise its primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security in any case where there appears to be a threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression, the General Assembly shall consider the matter immediately with a view to making appropriate recommendations to Members for collective measures, including in the case of a breach of the peace or act of aggression the use of armed force when necessary, to maintain or restore international peace and security. If not in session at the time, the General Assembly may meet in emergency special session within twenty-four hours of the request therefor. Such emergency special session shall be called if requested by the Security Council on the vote of any seven members, or by a majority of the Members of the United Nations;
2.Adopts for this purpose the amendments to its rules of procedure set forth in the annex to the present resolution;
On 5 September 2025, a group of 45 United Nations human rights experts, composed of UN Special Rapporteurs, UN independent experts and UN Working Group members, called the UN General Assembly to invoke the Uniting for Peace resolution in order to respond to the escalating famine and genocidal conditions in Gaza. In their joint statement, the experts urged the Assembly to (i) recommend a peace operation, (ii) demand that all crossings into Gaza be opened under UN supervision, (iii) suspend humanitarian mechanisms that had proved dangerous or ineffective, (iv) call upon Mediterranean states to deploy humanitarian naval missions, (v) authorize UN-led humanitarian convoys to supervise all crossings, and (vi) demand a permanent ceasefire alongside the release of detainees and hostages.
The leaders of over 20 major aid agencies working in Gaza, Palestine, are calling on world leaders to urgently intervene after a UN commission concluded, for the first time, that genocide is being committed.
The statement is below:
Gaza, 17 Sept 2025: The leaders of over 20 major aid agencies working in Gaza are calling on world leaders to urgently intervene after a UN commission concluded, for the first time, that genocide is being committed.
As world leaders convene next week at the United Nations, we are calling on all member states to act in accordance with the mandate the UN was charged with 80 years ago.
….
The leaders of over 20 major aid agencies working in Gaza are calling on world leaders to urgently intervene after a UN commission concluded, for the first time, that genocide is being committed.
The leaders of over 20 major aid agencies working in Gaza are calling on world leaders to urgently intervene after a UN commission concluded, for the first time, that genocide is being committed.
The statement is below:
Wednesday September 17, 2025
The leaders of over 20 major aid agencies working in Gaza, including Islamic Relief, are calling on world leaders to urgently intervene after a UN commission concluded, for the first time, that genocide is being committed. The statement is below:
As world leaders convene next week at the United Nations, we are calling on all member states to act in accordance with the mandate the UN was charged with 80 years ago.
What we are witnessing in Gaza is not only an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe, but what the UN Commission of Inquiry has now concluded is a genocide. With this finding, the Commission joins a growing number of human rights organisations and leaders globally, and within Israel.
The inhumanity of the situation in Gaza is unconscionable. As humanitarian leaders, we have borne direct witness to the horrifying deaths and suffering of the people of Gaza. Our warnings have gone unheeded and thousands more lives are still at stake.
Now, as the Israeli government has ordered the mass displacement of Gaza City – home to nearly one million people – we are on the precipice of an even deadlier period in Gaza’s story if action is not taken. Gaza has been deliberately made uninhabitable.
About 65,000 Palestinians have now been killed, including more than 20,000 children. Thousands more are missing, buried under the rubble that has replaced Gaza’s once lively streets.
Nine out of 10 people in Gaza’s 2.1 million population have been forcibly displaced — most of them multiple times — into increasingly shrinking pockets of land that cannot sustain human life.
More than half a million people are starving. Famine has been declared and is spreading. The cumulative impact of hunger and physical deprivation means people are dying every day.
Throughout Gaza, entire cities have been razed to the ground, along with their life-sustaining public infrastructure, such as hospitals and water treatment plants. Agricultural land has been systemically destroyed.
If the facts and numbers aren’t enough, we have harrowing story upon harrowing story.
Since the Israeli military tightened its siege six months ago, blocking food, fuel, and medicine, we witnessed children and families waste away from starvation as famine took hold. Our colleagues too have been impacted.
Many of us have been into Gaza. We have met countless Palestinians who have lost limbs as a result of Israel’s bombardment. We have personally met children so traumatised by daily airstrikes that they cannot sleep. Some cannot speak. Others have told us they want to die to join their parents in heaven.
We have met families who eat animal food to survive and boil leaves as a meal for their children.
Yet world leaders fail to act. Facts are ignored. Testimony is cast aside. And more people are killed as a direct consequence.
Our organisations, together with Palestinian civil society groups, the UN, and Israeli human rights organisations, can only do so much. We have tirelessly tried to defend the rights of the people of Gaza and sustain humanitarian assistance, but we are being obstructed every step of the way.
We have been denied access, and the militarisation of the aid system has proved deadly.
Thousands of people have been shot at while trying to reach the handful of sites where food is distributed under armed guard.
Governments must act to prevent the evisceration of life in the Gaza Strip, and to end the violence and occupation. All parties must disavow violence against civilians, adhere to international humanitarian law and pursue peace.
States must use every available political, economic, and legal tool at their disposal to intervene. Rhetoric and half measures are not enough. This moment demands decisive action.
The UN enshrined international law as the cornerstone of global peace and security. If Member States continue to treat these legal obligations as optional, they are not only complicit but are setting a dangerous precedent for the future. History will undoubtedly judge this moment as a test of humanity. And we are failing. Failing the people of Gaza, failing the hostages, and failing our own collective moral imperative.
Signed by (in alphabetical order):
– Arthur Larok, Secretary General of ActionAid International
– Othman Moqbel, Chief Executive Officer, Action For Humanity
– Joyce Ajlouny, General Secretary of American Friends Service Committee
– Sean Carroll, President and CEO of Anera
– Reintje Van Haeringen, Executive Director CARE International
– Jonas Nøddekær, Secretary General of DanChurchAid
– Charlotte Slente, Secretary General of the Danish Refugee Council
– Manuel Patrouillard, Managing Director, Humanity & Inclusion – Handicap International
– Jamie Munn, Executive Director, International Council of Voluntary Agencies (ICVA)
– Waseem Ahmad, CEO, Islamic Relief Worldwide
– Joseph Belliveau, Executive Director of MedGlobal
– Joel Weiler, Executive Director of Médecins du Monde France
– Nicolás Dotta, Executive Director of Médecins du Monde Spain
– Christopher Lockyear, Secretary General of Médecins Sans Frontières International
– Kenneth Kim, Executive Director, Mennonite Central Committee Canada
– Ann Graber Hershberger, Executive Director, Mennonite Central Committee US
– Jan Egeland, Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council
– Amitabh Behar, Oxfam International Executive Director
– Simon Panek, CEO, People in Need
– Inger Ashing, CEO of Save the Children International
– Donatella Vergara, President of Terre des Hommes Italy
– Rob Williams, CEO of War Child Alliance
„Some children have told us they want to die to join their parents in heaven,” the statement read.
Despite repeated warnings, the groups said, “facts are ignored, testimony is cast aside, and more people are killed as a direct consequence.”
The aid leaders urged governments to move beyond rhetoric and “use every available political, economic, and legal tool” to prevent the further destruction of Gaza and end Israel’s occupation.
“If Member States continue to treat these legal obligations as optional, they are not only complicit but are setting a dangerous precedent for the future,” the statement warned.
“There are immediate litmus tests that we are failing, and the cost is counted in millions of lives, in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Sudan, Ukraine and elsewhere. How to stop Israel’s ongoing genocide against Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip should be at the forefront of everyone’s mind. It cannot be business as usual while Israel deliberately starves and annihilates a population before our very eyes. We need rock-solid political will to end this hellish nightmare, with states applying robust diplomatic and economic pressure on Israel to end its unlawful occupation of the Palestinian territory – just as the UN General Assembly mandated in a resolution 12 months ago – and stop the genocide and its cruel system of apartheid against all Palestinians whose rights Israel controls.”
On September 18, Amnesty International will publish research naming 15 major US, Chinese, Spanish, South Korean and Israeli firms that are contributing to or directly linked to Israel’s crimes under international law. The briefing will contain detailed calls on states and companies to uphold their obligations and responsibilities under international law and standards.
RAMALLAH, September 16, 2025 (WAFA) – In its weekly session on Tuesday, the Cabinet urged countries worldwide to take urgent action to save the Gaza Strip, in light of the Israeli occupation army’s announcement of a ground invasion of Gaza City following threats and forced displacement orders issued to its residents.
The Cabinet underscored that placing Palestinians before two options—death or displacement—is an unprecedented act in modern history, which can only be described as a full-fledged war crime against two million Palestinian civilians whom the occupation continues to kill, burn, and starve, while depriving survivors of the most basic means of life.
246. The duty to prevent and punish genocide applies not only to the responsible State but to all States Parties to the Genocide Convention and indeed to all States under customary international law. In the Barcelona Traction case, the International Court of Justice recognised the erga omnes obligation in preventing and punishing genocide487 and held that the Genocide Convention obligates all States Parties to prevent and punish the crime of genocide.488 Even in the absence of an express order by the International Court of Justice, all States have a duty to assess whether a violation of the Genocide Convention has occurred or may occur and take steps to determine their own obligations in preventing and punishing such acts.
247. On 26 January 2024, in its first of three provisional measures orders in the South Africa v. Israel case, the International Court of Justice put all States on notice of the plausibility of the State of Israel committing genocide in its military operations in Gaza since 7 October 2023. The Court said, “at least some of the rights claimed by South Africa and for which it is seeking protection are plausible. This is the case with respect to the right of the Palestinians in Gaza to be protected from acts of genocide and related prohibited acts identified in Article III [of the Genocide Convention].” It found “a real and imminent risk that irreparable prejudice will be caused to the rights found by the Court to be plausible”.
248. It noted, inter alia, the catastrophic living conditions in Gaza. On 24 May 2024, the Court reinforced its earlier order, saying that “the current situation arising from Israel’s military offensive in Rafah entails a further risk of irreparable prejudice to the plausible rights claimed by South Africa and that there is urgency, in the sense that there exists a real and imminent risk that such prejudice will be caused before the Court gives its final decision.“ It ordered Israel to “immediately halt its military offensive, and any other action in the Rafah Governorate, which may inflict on the Palestinian group in Gaza conditions of life that could bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part”.492 The Commission emphasises the importance of these provisional measures orders in providing a strong statement to other States of their obligations to prevent and punish genocide.
249. Therefore, the Commission finds that, since at least 26 January 2024, when the International Court of Justice ordered its first provisional measures, all States Parties to the Genocide Convention, and all other States too, have been on notice of a serious risk that genocide was being or would be committed. As such, the duty to prevent genocide was triggered due to the actual or constructive knowledge of the immediate plausibility that genocide was being or was about to be committed. According to the International Court of Justice, where States Parties are able to contribute to the prevention of genocide, they are obligated to “employ all means reasonably available to them, so as to prevent genocide so far as possible.” Responsibility may be incurred if a State Party “manifestly failed to take all measures to prevent genocide which were within its power, and which might have contributed to preventing the genocide.”
250. Consistent with the obligations promulgated under the Genocide Convention, the Commission therefore notes that States are obliged to (i) ensure that Israel implements all orders for provisional measures issued by the International Court of Justice; (ii) cooperate to bring to an end all Israeli actions in Gaza that amount to a violation of the Genocide Convention; (iii) take steps to ensure the prevention of conduct that may amount to an act of genocide under the Genocide Convention, including the transfer of weapons that are used or likely to be used by Israel to commit genocidal acts; (iv) not recognise as lawful the military operations in Gaza that led to the violations of peremptory norms (jus cogens), including genocide; and (v) conduct investigations and take steps to ensure the punishment of violations of peremptory norms. The Commission recommends that, in fulfilment of these obligations, States (i) intervene in the International Court of Justice proceedings of South Africa v. Israel; and (ii) support and cooperate fully with the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in its investigation into the situation in the State of Palestine, with the aim of advancing international accountability.
In a new report published against the backdrop of intensifying Israeli military operations in Gaza City, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, urged Israel and all countries to fulfil their obligations under international law “to end the genocide” and punish those responsible.
“The Commission finds that Israel is responsible for the commission of genocide in Gaza,” insisted Navi Pillay, Chair of the Commission. “It is clear that there is an intent to destroy the Palestinians in Gaza through acts that meet the criteria set forth in the Genocide Convention.”
At a press conference in Geneva, the panel’s members – who are not UN staff but instead appointed by the Human Rights Council’s 47 Member States – explained that their investigations into the war in Gaza beginning with Hamas-led terror attacks in Israel on 7 October 2023 had led to the conclusion that Israeli authorities and security forces “committed four of the five genocidal acts defined by the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide”.
“There is a response that will happen from the region. This response is currently under consultation and discussion with other partners in the region,” Al-Thani said.
Al-Thani stated that an Arab-Islamic summit will be held in Doha in the coming days, where the participants will decide on a course of action.
(September 5, 2025)
GENEVA – UN experts* today issued an urgent appeal for an emergency meeting of the UN General Assembly, warning that the international community must act immediately before the 17 September-deadline for demanding an end to Israel‘s occupation of Palestine, as genocide and a man-made famine unfold in Gaza.
(…)
The experts called on the General Assembly to convene an emergency meeting to:
– Call on Member states to act under “uniting for peace” in line with General Assembly resolution 377 V and recommend a peace operation.
– Demand the opening of all the crossings to unrestricted humanitarian access under direct UN oversight.
– Demand the immediate suspension of failed or dangerous mechanisms, including those that have led to widespread killings at aid distribution points.
– Call on Member States with ports in the Mediterranean Sea to urgently deploy emergency navies carrying humanitarian aid.
– Request the authorisation of UN-led international humanitarian convoys with full UN authority to coordinate and supervise all crossings into Gaza.
– Demand an immediate, permanent ceasefire and the release of arbitrarily detained Palestinians and Israelis alike.
“The situation in Gaza is intolerable and unconscionable,” the experts said.
“The General Assembly must uphold the duty of the United Nations to respect international humanitarian law and protect civilians, end the violence, and guarantee that life-saving assistance reaches the people of Gaza without obstruction or delay. Anything less makes the international community complicit in these grave violations.”
The experts:
– Francesca Albanese, Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in the Palestinian territories, occupied since 1967
– Gina Romero, Special Rapporteur on the Rights to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and of Association;
– Mary Lawlor, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders
– Michael Fakhri, Special Rapporteur on the right to food
– Nicolas Levrat, Special Rapporteur on minority issues
– Paula Gaviria Betancur, Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons
– Pedro Arrojo Agudo, Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
– Siobhán Mullally, Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially women and children
– Heba Hagrass, Special Rapporteur on the rights of persons with disabilities
– Tomoya Obokata, Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
– George Katrougalos, Independent Expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order
– Claudia Flores (Chair), Ivana Krstić (Vice-Chair), Dorothy Estrada Tanck, Haina Lu, and Laura Nyirinkindi, Working group on discrimination against women and girls
– Jovana Jezdimirovic Ranito (Chair-Rapporteur), Ravindran Daniel, Michelle Small, Joana de Deus Pereira, Andrés Macías Tolosa, Working Group on the use of mercenaries
– Ashwini K.P. Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance
– Ben Saul, Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism
– Bina D‘Costa (Chair), Barbara G. Reynolds, Isabelle Mamadou, Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent
– Carlos Duarte (Chair), Shalmali Guttal, Davit Hakobyan (vice-chair), Uche Ofodile (vice chair), Genevieve Savigny, Working Group on the rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas
– Astrid Puentes Riaño, Special Rapporteur on the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment
– Mai Sato, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran
– Irene Khan, Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression
– Balakrishnan Rajagopal, Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing;
– Reem Alsalem, Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, its causes and consequences
– Elisa Morgera, Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights in the context of climate change
– Farida Shaheed, Special Rapporteur on the right to education;
– Gabriella Citroni (Chair-Rapporteur), Grażyna Baranowska (Vice-Chair), Aua Baldé, Ana Lorena Delgadillo Pérez, and Mohammed Al-Obaidi, Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances
– Alexandra Xanthaki, Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights
– Surya Deva, Special Rapporteur on the right to development
(September 4, 2025)
ou know, far too many delegations have gotten into the habit of hiding behind the U.S. veto by throwing up their arms and saying, “Well, we tried, but the U.S. vetoed it.” But Uniting for Peace allows the member states of the United Nations, 193 of them, in the General Assembly, to circumvent the U.S. veto and to adopt concrete action, as it did, for example, in 1956 by mandating the U.N. emergency force to deploy to the Sinai in the middle of the Suez Crisis against the wishes of two Security Council members, the United Kingdom and France, and against the wishes of Israel. It could do the same thing now, in September, by mandating a U.N. protection force for the people in Gaza and, more broadly, in Palestine, that is specifically mandated to protect civilians, that is mandated to ensure the delivery of humanitarian aid, to preserve evidence of Israeli war crimes and to begin the process of reconstruction, most importantly, to change the incentive structure for Israel and its co-conspirators in the genocide that’s happening in Palestine. (…)
…the beauty of the Uniting for Peace mechanism is that the secretary-general cannot block it, the Security Council cannot block it, the United States cannot block it. It only requires a two-third majority of the member states. There is a move underway to build that majority now, and the hope is that that will take place.
(September 2, 2025)
Under the „Uniting for Peace“ mechanism, when the Security Council is deadlocked, the authority to act passes to the General Assembly. After a Security Council session and the almost inevitable US veto, the issue would be brought before the UNGA in a resumed 10th emergency special session on the Israel-Palestine conflict. There, the General Assembly can, by a two-thirds majority not subject to US veto, authorize a protection force in response to an urgent request from the State of Palestine. There is a precedent: in 1956, the General Assembly authorized the UN Emergency Force (UNEF) to enter Egypt and protect it from the ongoing invasion by Israel, France, and the United Kingdom.
At the invitation of Palestine, the protection force would enter Gaza to secure emergency humanitarian aid for the starving population. If Israel were to attack the UN protection force, the force would be authorized to defend itself and the Gazans. Whether Israel and the US would dare to fight a UNGA-mandated force protecting the starving Gazans remains to be seen.