The Palestinian Human Rights Organizations Council (PHROC)* and the Palestinian NGO’s Network (PNGO)**, and Al-Haq Europe warn that Gaza has become the cemetery of international law – a place where the principles the world once claimed to defend have been buried under the rubble of obliterated homes, schools, hospitals, and refugee camps. For over 22 months, Israel continues to carry out its unrelentless genocide, including mass killing, mass destruction, forced displacement and engineered starvation using hunger as a tool of destruction. This is not only a genocide in real time – it is the most documented atrocity crime of our era, unfolding without consequences for its perpetrators. 

The Israeli Security Cabinet’s approval of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to “prepare for taking control of Gaza City” and for the “establishment of an alternative civil administration”, is the latest genocidal measure towards the total destruction of Palestinians in Gaza. Gaza is already occupied and has been under Israel’s illegal occupation since 1967. Israel’s unilateral disengagement from Gaza in 2005 did not end its occupation of Gaza as it maintained its effective control over it – and even more so after 7 October 2023. 

Notwithstanding, the new Israeli Security Cabinet plan marks a major escalation in the genocide: the forced displacement of over one million Palestinians from Gaza City ––the Gaza Strip’s largest remaining urban centre. The plan includes the systematic targeting of Al Mawasi, the so-called “safe zone” – a densely packed strip of barren land, with no infrastructure, where almost half a million Palestinians have sought refuge in makeshift tents. This is not a military tactic, it is the calculated erasure of Palestinian life. It is a plan for the annihilation and annexation of Gaza.

The United States has been a direct participant in and enabler of this genocide: supplying weapons, providing political cover, blocking UN Security Council resolutions, and even bypassing its own legislative safeguards to accelerate the flow of arms. Its role is not merely complicity – it is actively engaging in the crime of genocide, alongside Israel.  

Despite overwhelming public outrage, binding orders from the International Court of Justice, and the unequivocal legal obligation on all states to prevent and punish genocide, the international community remains paralysed. This failure is the product of political choice. It is the choice to protect strategic alliances over human life, to preserve impunity over justice. 

Against this climate of moral collapse, some States have announced their intention to recognise the State of Palestine in September – the same month marking the deadline set by the UN General Assembly to end Israel’s 58-year occupation of Palestinian territory. While recognition is a welcome step, it will not stop the genocide. It will not stop the mass killing, starvation, torture and forced displacement. It will not dismantle apartheid nor end the occupation. Without also taking concrete actions, it risks becoming yet another empty promise – a political fig leaf over the bodies in Gaza. 

Every hour that passes without action is a choice – a choice to stand with genocide, to stand against law, and to bury the very principles that underpin the international system. Gaza must not remain the graveyard for international justice. 

We, Palestinian civil society organisations, PHROC, PNGO and Al-Haq Europe call on all States to act now, to stop the genocide and enforce Palestinian rights in full. We call on all States to:

Legislate to ban trade, in goods and services, with Israel’s unlawful settlements, as well as any trade with Israel which contributes to the maintenance of the unlawful occupation, and to ensure a full and immediate cessation of hostilities in Gaza and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from all of the OPT;

Uphold their obligations under the Genocide Convention and the 2004 Wall Advisory Opinion and 2024 Palestine Advisory Opinion, by ceasing all forms of complicity with Israel’s illegal occupation, racial segregation and apartheid, and by actively supporting the exercise of by the Palestinian people of their right to self-determination;

Enact a comprehensive ban, underpinned by a rigorous regulatory regime, on companies and entities involved to any degree with the production, trade or marketing of Israeli goods and services that assist in the maintenance of the illegal situation, including settlements products;

Enact targeted sanctions on physical and legal persons, Israeli and international, including all members of Israel’s Security Cabinet and military leadership, corporations, institutions, and non-profit entities, complicit in Israel’s breaches of international law;

Enact a ban on oil, gas and other energy agreements with Israel, particularly where any part of the agreement includes transit and pipelines, and infrastructure located in, or contiguous with the OPT, including its territorial waters, contiguous zone, and Exclusive Economic Zone;

Develop punitive mechanisms sufficient to effectively halt and deter trade and investments by governmental and national companies, with Israeli companies, financial institutions, or banks that are contributing to maintain Israel’s unlawful occupation;

Commit to supporting The Hague Group July 2025 initiative;

Cooperate in enforcement of the International Criminal Court arrest warrants issued against Netanyahu and Gallant; 

Apply universal jurisdiction and investigate and prosecute, nationals or those present on their territory, responsible for the perpetration of international crimes against the Palestinian people;

Submit written legal interventions to the International Court of Justice, in both the South Africa v Israel and Nicaragua v Germany proceedings, in order to affirm Palestinian rights and to support the enforcement of international law;

Protect UNRWA by all necessary means, including financial, logistic, and diplomatic support required in order to fulfil its mandate;

Act under Article 6 of the UN Charter, in response to the legal obligations arising from Israel’s internationally wrongful conduct, including through its manufacture of genocidal famine, to secure the immediate expulsion of Israel from the UN General Assembly.

* The Palestinian Human Rights Organizations Council

** The Palestinian NGO’s Network (PNGO) is a Palestinian NGO umbrella organization comprising 132 member organizations working in different developmental fields. It seeks to support, consolidate, and strengthen the Palestinian civil society based on the principles of democracy, social justice and sustainable development. It strives for the attainment of the legitimate national rights of the Palestinian people.