The Palestinian Human Rights Organizations Council (PHROC) Condemns the ultimatum issued by the United States on 29 September 2025, which conditions the suspension of Israel’s ongoing genocide on Gaza upon unilateral terms dictated by the Trump administration, to be a grave violation of international law and an outright assault on the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people.
While PHROC welcomes all genuine efforts to end the genocide in Gaza, the U.S. plan does not aim to end the Israel’s settler colonial apartheid regime and unlawful occupation but rather to entrench and normalize it. By rewarding Israel’s systematic crimes of apartheid, persecution, and genocide, the plan denies Palestinians their most fundamental rights. It mirrors the failures of the international community, in ignoring the root causes i.e., the imposition of Israel’s expansionist settler colonial apartheid regime, in breach of the collective Palestinian rights to
self-determination and return.
In stark contrast to the consistent international calls for the release of Israeli hostages, there has been near silence regarding Palestinian hostages. Israel continues to withhold 732 bodies of Palestinians in morgues and military cemeteries, including 67 children, 85 prisoners who died in detention (many as a result of starvation), and 10 women. Such practices constitute grave breaches of international humanitarian law, yet they are rarely addressed by the international community — underscoring the entrenched double standards that continue to devalue Palestinian lives.
The International Court of Justice’s 2024 Advisory Opinion unequivocally affirmed that Israel’s presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory is unlawful. Under international law, all States are obligated not to recognize, aid, or assist in maintaining this illegality and must act collectively to bring it to an end. No agreement imposed under coercion can extinguish the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination or diminish the obligations of States under the United Nations Charter, the Fourth Geneva Convention (Art. 47), and the International Covenants on Civil and Political Rights and on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (Art. 1).
By conditioning humanitarian aid on acceptance of these terms, the U.S. ultimatum weaponizes relief and shields Israel’s genocidal policies from accountability. Israel’s refusal to facilitate relief operations, despite the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza, constitutes an act of genocide under international law. Accountability mechanisms for such egregious violations demand support, including the enforcement of the arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court against Prime Minister Netanyahu and former Minister of Defence Gallant, and the use of Third States universal jurisdiction mechanisms.
Until international law is upheld, Israel dismantles its settler colonial apartheid regime, withdraws from unlawfully occupied territory, and facilitates the right of return for Palestinian refugees and exiles, externally imposed frameworks will remain illegitimate, unlawful, and unacceptable.
PHROC calls on Third States to reject President Trump’s 20-point plan as a manifest breach of the Palestinian peoples collective and inalienable right to self-determination.
PHROC reaffirms its principled position: any process to halt the ongoing genocide must form part of a comprehensive effort to dismantle Israel’s settler colonial apartheid regime and unlawful occupation, and realize the Palestinian people’s collective and inalienable right to self-determination and return. Anything less serves only to perpetuate their denial.