<\/p>\n
19 September 2025<\/p>\n
To learn more about Special Procedures of the UN Human Rights Council and the Question of Palestine, click here to visit the dedicated webpage.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n On the anniversary of the adoption of the General Assembly\u00a0resolution<\/a><\/em>\u00a0following the ICJ ruling on Palestine,\u202fUN experts* urged Member States to comply with their obligations under international law, take concrete actions to stop Israel\u2019s attacks against the Palestinians and end its unlawful occupation. They issued the following joint statement:<\/p>\n \u201cWe are appalled that, despite the overwhelming support at the UN General Assembly for the resolution based on the International Court of Justice\u2019s\u00a0advisory opinion<\/a><\/em>\u00a0of July 2024, which declared Israel\u2019s continued presence in the occupied Territory unlawful and affirmed that all States are obliged not to recognise, aid, or assist the decades-long occupation. The situation today continues to be apocalyptic, with the Palestinian people facing an existential threat.<\/p>\n The resolution set out clear responsibilities for third States and international organisations, including the UN system, in relation to Israel\u2019s unlawful occupation. It called on Israel to comply with international law by withdrawing its military forces, halting all new settlement activity, evacuating settlers from occupied land, dismantling sections of the separation wall built inside the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and ending the exploitation of Palestinian natural resources. The resolution clarified that any State that continues to aid, assist, or otherwise contribute to the occupation and its related violations risks breaching international law and becoming complicit in international crimes.<\/p>\n The one-year anniversary of the resolution comes at the bleakest of times. Seven hundred days of a military assault on the Gaza Strip and the rest of the occupied Palestinian territory has killed and injured at least 230,000 Palestinians. 2.1 million civilians in the besieged enclave are literally starving. The whole of Gaza has been reduced to rubble and the entire population has been forcibly displaced, often multiple times. The failure of most Member States to act decisively exposes the deep erosion of the multilateral system that has been reduced to becoming the collateral damage of the Gaza genocide.<\/p>\n In recent months, the collective and far-reaching nature of the unfolding genocide has become undeniable \u2013 marked by mass killings, unspeakable suffering, and large-scale destruction. The violence is no longer confined to Gaza; it is spilling into the West Bank, where forced mass displacement and brutal attacks by armed settlers cannot be dismissed as the actions of a few rogue officials but are aided and abetted by the State at every level. Every branch of the Israeli State \u2013 it\u2019s Executive, Parliament, and Courts \u2013 have failed to restrain or remedy this abuse of power. Instead, they have perpetuated and advanced the catastrophe, built \u2013 as with every genocide before it \u2013 on the systematic dehumanisation of an entire people.<\/p>\n The time to stop this genocide is long past. We are dismayed that Member States did not take the obligation to prevent a genocide seriously. Israel\u2019s continued impunity and the failure to stop the monstrous crimes being committed against Palestinians has set the stage for further aggression by Israel against other countries in the region. It should have been stopped before Rafah was invaded; before Israel attacked several countries across the Middle East and North Africa.<\/p>\n The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel has concluded in a\u00a0report<\/a><\/em>\u00a0published this week that Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.<\/p>\n Yet instead of action, a world that is now fully awake to the horror of genocide and the injustice of occupation and apartheid is confronted with silence, or worse, justification from a small but powerful group of States that continue to enable Israel\u2019s assault on Gaza, on international law, on the multilateral system and on humanity itself.<\/p>\n In this heartbreaking moment, we remind the international community of the\u00a0recommendations<\/a><\/em>\u00a0that we highlighted in a statement\u00a0<\/strong>issued on 18 September 2024 and recall the\u00a0Position Paper<\/a><\/em>\u00a0issued by the United Nations International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem and Israel.<\/p>\n To comply with the Advisory Opinion, the International Court of Justice affirmed the need to cut ties with the unlawful occupation. This means that sanctions cannot be avoided, including on Israel, on individuals and on businesses doing business with a genocidal regime:<\/p>\n The longer States maintain these ties, the more they entrench normalisation and legitimise illegality \u2013 all the while fostering impunity and rendering themselves complicit in international crimes.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
\n