Amidst ongoing complicity by Third States in Israel’s commission of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, at the 62nd Regular Session of the UN Human Rights Council (HRC62), Al-Haq shed a spotlight on the various means by which Israel is pursuing its annexationist goals and Zionist agenda of Palestinian erasure. Al-Haq’s engagement throughout HRC62, which took place between 15 June and 10 July 2026, included two written submissions and two oral interventions drawing much needed attention to the unhindered implementation of the ‘20-Point Plan’ – an attack on the very idea of a viable Palestinian State – and the widespread and systematic use of settler violence to destroy Palestinians in the West Bank and annex the Palestinian territory. Al-Haq also participated in a Side Event organised by the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls, centring on Israeli violence against mothers in the Gaza Strip.

While each of Al-Haq’s interventions highlighted the rapidly deteriorating situation on the ground in Palestine for not just its population, but the prospects of attaining territorial contiguity and true sovereignty, the main message was a call to action. For over 1000 days the international community has been paralysed by a defunct system in which a few powerful States – each of which are directly profiting from their complicity in Israel’s settler-colonial apartheid regime – either dictate the rules of engagement or prevent any meaningful action capable of ending Israel’s unlawful occupation and genocide against the Palestinian people. Thus, Al-Haq repeatedly stressed the binding obligations upon Third States to prevent and punish genocide, ensure respect for the Geneva Conventions, and bring to an end as rapidly as possible the illegal situation created by Israel, as outlined by the International Court of Justice.

1. The De Facto Annexation and Structural Overhaul of the West Bank

As detailed in its written submission for the interactive dialogue on the report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel (COI), the Israeli Security Cabinet enacted a series of manifestly unlawful decisions on 8 February 2026 designed to institutionalise Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank. Disclosed by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, these measures deliberately strip away the remaining legal safeguards protecting Palestinian land by: opening the historically classified West Bank land registry to public access, facilitating targeted settler acquisitions; repealing Jordanian-era restrictions on foreign land purchases; abolishing the mandatory “transaction permits” previously required by the Ministry of Defense to verify transaction authenticity and prevent fraud; and reviving the “Committee for Purchasing Lands” to allow the Occupying Power to buy territory directly, alongside initiating a land-titling process in Area C to register at least 15 percent of unregistered land as “State Land” by 2030.

Violating the division of powers established under prior international agreements that already were in breach of the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination, the Israeli Civil Administration has expanded its enforcement authority into Areas A and B under the guise of environmental, water, and heritage preservation, directly empowering them to issue demolition orders against Palestinian structures.

On 25 March 2026, the Security Cabinet clandestinely approved 34 additional settlements (including 24 entirely new and 10 retroactively “legalised” outposts), bringing the current government’s total to 102 since December 2022. In occupied East Jerusalem, plans for 33,519 new settlement housing units are underway, alongside the strategic advancement of the E1 corridor, which aims to further fragment the West Bank into isolated enclaves.

2. UN Security Council Resolution 2803 and Trump’s ‘20-Point Plan’: Normalising Israel’s Ongoing Genocide in Gaza

While the West Bank is fragmented by settlements and an exponential increase in illegal outposts, the Gaza Strip is being converted into a site for foreign profit and resource wealth extraction. As outlined in Al-Haq’s written submission for the interactive dialogue on the report of the Special Rapporteur on Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), the international community’s endorsement of President Trump’s ‘20-Point Plan’, now enshrined in UN Security Council Resolution 2803, has merely entrenched, and internationalised, Israel’s unlawful occupation. At the same time, it has normalised Israel’s ongoing genocide and wholesale destruction of the Palestinian territory by omitting any mention of accountability or the inalienable right of the Palestinian people to self-determination.

The ‘20-Point Plan’ excludes any meaningful Palestinian involvement, vesting governance of Gaza into a corporate-styled “Board of Peace” (BoP) chaired by President Trump and featuring Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, wanted by the ICC for war crimes and crimes against humanity. It allows Israel to retain an open-ended security perimeter, redrawn by Israeli military maps from the original “Yellow Line”, into an “Orange Line” that continues to spread deeper into the Gaza Strip. At the time of submission, the “Orange Line” placed 65 percent of Gaza entirely off-limits to Palestinians, fortifying the area under full Israeli control with military outposts and dirt barriers and lethally targeting all Palestinians who came into proximity of the ever-shifting boundary. Not even two months later, it is reported that a staggering 80 percent of Gaza’s territory has been seized by Israel. As a result, 1.9 million internally displaced Palestinians (out of a 2.1 million population) are now compressed into a fifth of the territory, trapped in environments of severe overcrowding devoid of all necessary infrastructure and supplies through Israel’s deliberate creation of conditions unfit for human survival.

Despite UN Security Council Resolution 2803 and accompanying ‘20-Point Plan’ constituting an egregious violation of the UN Charter and peremptory norms of international law by allowing for the exploitation and perpetual occupation of Gaza, States have either demanded its enforcement and offered diplomatic, material and financial support or remained silent as its implementation accelerates the destruction of Palestinian men, women and children along with their hopes of a future in their homeland.

1. Settler Violence as a Method of Palestinian Erasure

Following on from its written submission outlining the legislative steps through which Israel is pursuing its annexation of Palestine, Al-Haq explained, in its oral statement during the interactive dialogue with the COI, how this is accompanied by an unprecedented spike in organised, State-sponsored settler violence that cements Israel’s illegal presence in Palestine through the displacement, dispossession and destruction of Palestinian communities.

Since the beginning of 2026, nearly 1,500 organised attacks by armed settler groups have been documented, targeting individuals, agricultural lands, and entire communities. The deeply alarming pattern of settler violence we are witnessing must be understood as a means and method of implementing Israel’s Zionist goal of Palestinian erasure.

Since the beginning of 2026, nearly 1,500 attacks have been documented—targeting individuals, homes, agricultural land, and livelihoods. Organised groups of armed settlers – expanding their illegal presence in Palestine in direct defiance of the ICJ’s July 2024 Advisory Opinion – are employing lethal force and aggressive intimidation tactics, often targeting entire communities. Illegal outposts, once a tool of land control and appropriation, have evolved into operational hubs for attacks. Incidents that begin as property seizures, such as livestock theft, now frequently lead to the fatal injury and killing of Palestinians.

Serving as a tool of territorial consolidation that entrenches apartheid, these acts drive mass forcible displacement – especially of pastoral and Bedouin communities. The scale, organisation, and persistence of this violence – and its clear facilitation by the State – further attest to its role in advancing Israel’s annexation of Palestine and destruction of its people.

The consequences of systematically targeting, dispossessing and depriving Palestinians of their means of survival are not only humanitarian – they are existential.

Before our eyes, Palestinians endure an ongoing genocide met with global complicity –meaningful international action is both overdue and urgently required.
 

2. The International Community’s Failure to Reject Resolution 2803 and the ‘20-Point Plan’

In light of States continued inaction, and the silence of UN bodies, in response to the manifestly unlawful provisions of UN Security Council Resolution 2803 and President Trump’s intent to add the Gaza Strip to his real estate portfolio in applying a corporate governance model in the ’20-Point Plan’, Al-Haq took the opportunity to reiterate the urgent need to oppose its implementation.

The devastating consequences of UN Security Council Resolution 2803 and Trump’s ‘20-Point Plan’ for Gaza cannot be overstated. Instead of achieving peace, it has merely internationalised and entrenched Israel’s settler-colonial apartheid regime and unlawful occupation, denying the Palestinian people their inalienable right to self-determination and return.

Its implementation has normalised Israel’s ongoing genocide, which is being fuelled by the continued mass forcible displacement of Palestinians. Today, nearly the entire population – around 1.9 million people - has been condensed into less than 35 percent of Gaza as Israel expands its so-called “security perimeters” and military control, rendering the land inaccessible to Palestinians and paving the way for its annexation and resettlement, all acts carried out with impunity.

Beyond directly contravening the ICJ’s July 2024 Advisory Opinion by further fragmenting and consolidating Israel’s illegal presence in Palestine, Resolution 2803 and accompanying ‘20-Point Plan’ accelerate Israel’s genocide in Gaza by worsening the conditions of life for Palestinians – which had already been determined by various UN bodies as unfit for human survival.

Rather than upholding their duty to prevent and punish genocide and ensure respect for the Geneva Conventions, States have treated Gaza and the displacement and destruction of the Palestinian people as an investment opportunity and site for foreign profit.

And yet, in the place of outright condemnation, the response of the international community has been one of either deafening silence or explicit support.

Both of Al-Haq's oral interventions were endorsed by Al Mezan and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights.

Following an invite from UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls, Ms. Reem Alsalem, to participate in a high-level side event organised on the margins of HRC62, on 25 June 2026 Al-Haq took part in a panel discussing the specific dangers faced by mothers.

Rather than outline the multifaceted forms of violence experienced by mothers in Gaza, as it had done in its submission to Special Rapporteur Alsalem for the purpose of assisting her in drafting her report on the issue, Al-Haq’s field team facilitated the participation of Ms. Sa’eda Ahmad AbuOdeh to speak about her experience as a mother in Gaza during Israel’s genocidal campaign.

Ms. AbuOdeh is an English teacher from Gaza and mother to seven children. She is the only surviving member of her family. Her seven children and her husband were killed by an Israeli missile bombing their house as she was outside in the market trying to get essential supplies. She had to identify their bodies as her sons and daughters. Her brother's house also was bombed, killing six and injuring the remaining three members of the family that managed to survive. Her brother, his wife and four of their children were killed. Sa’eda’s mother-in-law had a heart attack and passed away shortly after the unimaginable loss of so many family members. Sa’eda was evacuated to Jordan for the treatment of her niece Maysoon, 16 years, and Nada, 9 years. She delivered her intervention at the Side Event from Jordan.

After recounting the immensely traumatic events of the past three years, though she considered herself one of the “lucky” mothers since she was able to at least bury her children, Ms. AbuOdeh delivered a powerful message to States:

The silence of the world is complicity in the genocide [taking place] in Gaza. The world must act, not watch, because we are not numbers and we are not news or headlines. We are not asking for sympathy. We just ask for justice, humanity and protection [which] every human being deserves.

The world must work to stop this bleeding of life. Enough families have been killed and enough families have been broken.

In a systematic and unprecedented escalation since the beginning of 2026, Israel has accelerated its multi-layered strategy aimed at the complete erasure of the Palestinian people and the permanent annexation of their land. The Israeli government, with direct assistance from illegal settlers and settler organisations, is creating irreversible facts on the ground in flagrant defiance of the International Court of Justice’s July 2024 Advisory Opinion.

Israel, now acting as a rogue State, continues to violate peremptory norms of international law, including the right to self-determination, the absolute prohibition against the acquisition of territory by force, and binding commitments under the Fourth Geneva Convention and the Genocide Convention. Notwithstanding its manifestly illegal policies and practices, States remain complicit through both their inaction and support.

Echoing its previous engagements at HRC Sessions, Al-Haq’s contributions at HRC62 intended to remind States of both their erga omnes obligations and responsibility for failing to uphold them in the face of the ongoing destruction of the Palestinian people and annexation of their ancestral land.

In line with the demands articulated across all four submissions, Al-Haq and its partners reiterate their prior calls on the Human Rights Council, Member States, and Special Procedures ad UN Mechanisms.

To the Human Rights Council:

• Reaffirm that the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination is a jus cogens norm and operationalise this recognition across all relevant resolutions and mandates, including through rejecting UN Security Council Resolution 2803 as legally null and void and calling on States to not engage with the ‘20-Point Plan’ it enshrines;

• Strengthen and renew mandates addressing apartheid, settler-colonialism, annexation, and genocide, ensuring resources for investigation and reporting, including the Commission of Inquiry and relevant Special Procedures;

• Mandate the UN system to support remedies that enable return, restitution, and reparation, consistent with the realisation of the inalienable right of the Palestinian people to self-determination.

To UN Member States:

• Reject UN Security Council Resolution 2803 as legally invalid, and do not legitimise or engage in the implementation of the manifestly unlawful ‘20-Point Plan’ in any way;

• Respect and act upon their binding obligations to prevent and punish the crime of genocide and to respect and ensure respect for the Geneva Conventions of 1949, which includes: imposing a full arms embargo; cutting diplomatic and trade relations; imposing comprehensive sanctions; and pursuing accountability;

• Act in accordance with their legal obligations as outlined in the International Court of Justice’s Advisory Opinion on Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, by upholding their duty of non-recognition and non-assistance, and cooperate to bring Israel’s unlawful occupation of and illegal presence in Palestine to an end;

• Call on the UN Security Council and General Assembly to implement economic sanctions and other countermeasures capable of forcing Israel to adhere to its binding obligations under international law and ending its mass atrocities against the Palestinian people;

• Protect Palestinian human rights defenders and civil society from sanctions and other punitive measures, including by providing safe channels for funding and engagement with UN mechanisms.

To Special Procedures and UN Mechanisms:

• Label UN Security Council Resolution 2803 as legally null and void based on it violating the UN Charter and peremptory norms of international law;

• Integrate self-determination as a cross-cutting analytical lens in all reporting on the situation in Palestine and systematically track States’ compliance with their binding erga omnes obligations;

• Establish a IIIM accountability mechanism for Palestine and closely monitor Israel’s escalating acts of annexation and ongoing policies and practices carried out with the goal of Palestinian erasure.