At UN Headquarters: I C H R Briefs States on Palestine, Emphasizing International Legal Responsibility to Hold Israel and Supporters Accountable

The Independent Commission for Human Rights participated in a high-level briefing organized by the UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People (CEIRPP) on Thursday, 31 October 2024, at UN Headquarters in New York, with the event also broadcast via UN Web TV.

The briefing, titled “International Legal Responsibilities for Preventing Genocide, Holding Perpetrators of War Crimes Accountable, and Ending the Unlawful Occupation of Palestine,” focused on critical legal and human rights issues, including insights from the recent International Court of Justice (ICJ) Advisory Opinion on Israel’s policies in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. This event attracted a wide range of attendees, including representatives of state parties, NGOs, researchers, journalists, and human rights defenders.

 

At the beginning of the meeting, Cheikh Niang (Senegal), Committee Chair, commended the work of UN experts in investigating and documenting what has been happening.  They have sifted through vast amounts of documents and testimonies, gathered evidence and separated facts from misinformation.  Their “efforts are vital, not only for telling the story of Gaza, but more importantly for ensuring accountability”, he said.

UN experts underscored the importance of calling a genocide a genocide, urging states to re-evaluate their roles to avoid complicity in crimes against the Palestinian people.

 

Diana Buttu Exposes the Human Cost of Israeli Aggression: The International Community's Complicity in the 'Axis of Genocide

Speaking in the event, Diana Buttu, Member of the Board of Commissioners — Independent Commission for Human Rights of Palestine, noted that it will take more than 18 years just to remove the rubble in Gaza.  While almost 10 per cent of the Strip’s population has been killed, injured, or gone missing, 80 per cent has been subjected to some type of evacuation, with Israel treating Palestinians “like human pinballs”.

 

She highlighted “the axis of genocide”, which includes Israel, United States and some European States that are pushing for its continuation, supporting it or funding it, and denounced the international community’s failure to speak in one voice.  She drew attention to the cases of Israeli soldiers uploading the evidence of their crimes on social media, adding that no one has been prosecuted for these crimes.  “Imagine what it is like to live in a society where this is considered to be okay,” she added.

 

Francesca Albanese Calls for Global Acknowledgment of Genocide in Gaza

“If you go to a doctor because you have cancer and you are diagnosed with fever, you have a big problem — it’s the same with the people who are being genocided,” said Francesca Albanese, Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian Territory Occupied Since 1967, during her intervention.

 

Describing herself as “a reluctant chronicler of genocide,” Ms. Albanese said the international community must recognize what is happening in Gaza as a genocide and “understand the bigger design behind what’s happening in Palestine today”. It is not simply war crimes and crimes against humanity that the Palestinians are experiencing — “they have experienced those through their entire life,” she said, but the current situation is different.

Under the fog of war, Israel has accelerated the forced displacement of the Palestinians that began decades ago, but “what’s happening today is much more severe because of the technology, the weaponry and the impunity”, she added.  It is time to consider suspending Israel’s credential as a Member State. Acknowledging that this is a sensitive topic, she said: “None of you really has clean hands when it comes to human rights,” but no other country has maintained an unlawful occupation violating decades of UN resolutions as Israel has done, she said.

Tlaleng Mofokeng: The Destruction of Healthcare in Gaza and Imposed Famine Constitute Crimes Against Humanity

Tlaleng Mofokeng, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health, said the Israeli leadership’s promise last year to destroy Gaza has been fulfilled.  “The Strip now is a wasteland of rubble and human remains” where survivors struggle to hold on to life and bodies are decomposing in the ruins of what used to be clinics and hospitals.  Some 560 attacks have been reported on health facilities, which face shortages of power, medical supplies and personnel — only 36 hospitals remain, and they are partially functioning.  Accusing Israel and its allies of “knowingly and intentionally imposing famine and dehydration”, she warned that these practices will stunt an entire generation.

 

Highlighting the urgency of psychological support, she said the prolonged violence has created a vast need for this and has also made it unavailable.  She reported arrests and detentions of health-care workers on duty, with some allegedly showing signs of torture.  “The destruction of health systems created by this genocide is incompatible with […] the right to physical and mental health,” she asserted. To the Palestinians, she said, “I am ashamed and deeply sorry that the multilateral world has failed you.”

Chris Sidoti: The Unlawfulness of Israel’s Occupation Demands Immediate Accountability and Global Action

 

Also addressing the Committee was Chris Sidoti, the Commissioner of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, who noted that when journalists ask him to describe what is happening, he says, “I am just speechless.”  Even “cold-hearted, hard-shelled diplomats” have told him how overwhelmed and sad they are, he said. Citing the Commission’s October 2022 report, he said it concluded that the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory had become unlawful and recommended that the General Assembly refer the situation to the International Court of Justice.  “To my shock, the Assembly acted on it almost immediately,” he said, also noting the Court’s opinion, issued in July 2024, that Israel’s occupation was unlawful and must be ended immediately.

He said the Commission also has an accountability mandate, which provides information to the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court on a monthly basis.  “We collect the information, we verify it, we form conclusions as to the significance of the information in relation to international crimes and we provide it to the Prosecutor,” he said, adding that the Commission also provided information to the Government of South Africa in its case under the Genocide Convention before the International Court of Justice.  He regretted that neither these efforts nor Council resolutions prevented a single death in Gaza.

Anisha Patel: States Must Uphold Legal Obligations or Face Complicity in Israel’s Atrocities

In her intervention, Anisha Patel, Governing Council Member and Head of Content and Discourse at Law for Palestine, emphasized that Israel's settler-colonial assault on Palestinians in Gaza represents the latest chapter in a prolonged Nakba spanning over 76 years. “We are all too familiar with the haunting pleas from Palestinian journalists who are being brutally targeted as we speak for broadcasting their own destruction in real time,” she said, noting that the initial pages of Gaza's Health Ministry’s latest casualty report were filled with the names of Palestinian children under one year old. “The international community is already painfully aware of these atrocities,” she stated, adding that documentation shows children and civilians suffering devastating impacts from powerful bombs.

 

Patel outlined the legal responsibilities and consequences for states failing to act against Israel’s genocidal practices and continued presence in the occupied Palestinian territories (oPt), which constitute acts of aggression and racial segregation in violation of peremptory norms. She reminded the audience of the ICJ’s findings, affirming that states aiding Israel's actions may bear legal consequences. “A full embargo on arms, munitions, and military equipment transfers is a fundamental obligation arises not only from the Court’s advisory opinion but also from the Genocide Convention,”.

Beyond the arms embargo, the obligation of non-assistance applies to all diplomatic, economic, cultural, and academic ties that sustain Israel's unlawful actions and apartheid. Patel reminded states of their duty to prevent complicity by individuals and corporations within their jurisdictions.

Feda Abdelhady-Nasser: Highlighting the Unprecedented Humanitarian Crisis in Gaza and a Call to Action Against Impunity

Feda Abdelhady-Nasser, Deputy Permanent Observer of the State of Palestine to the United Nations, took the floor at the beginning and end of the meeting.  She said that Palestinians in Gaza have endured “no chapter darker” than the past year, with tens of thousands of civilian deaths, 902 families entirely wiped out, thousands crushed to death under rubble and 2 million forcibly displaced and hunted down by the Israeli occupation forces.  With northern Gaza turning into the epicenter of the onslaught, those left are facing starvation and must choose between ethnic cleansing and submission to colonial domination.

 

Israel is also “waging an open war on the UN”, she added as she questioned its continued UN membership.  Despite committing these crimes, it has been shielded by the United States’ veto in the Security Council.  She also highlighted its punitive measures against the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), while at the same time, acknowledged the outpouring of solidarity from around the world.  “The days have never been darker, but the prospects for justice have never been greater.”  Do not forsake the Palestinian people, do not take their resilience for granted, “do not normalize genocide, do not become numb”, she said.

The event concluded with interventions and questions from representatives and ambassadors of several states, including Egypt, Nicaragua, Cuba, Malta, Indonesia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Iran and Uganda, as well as civil society representatives present.

Delegates voiced profound frustration over the worsening of the war in Gaza and reiterated the call for immediate ceasefire, accountability and a long-term resolution to the Palestinian question. While some delegates called for a stop to the “collective murder” of Palestinians and for their support without hypocrisy and double standards, others underscored the importance of adherence to international law, including UN resolutions and opinions of the International Court of Justice.  They also expressed solidarity with all UN entities and mechanisms that are working on Palestine-related issues, and urged for allocation of sufficient resources to buttress their mandates.

* To watch the full recording of the event, click here.