At UN HQ: Law for Palestine Briefs States on Their International Legal Responsibilities for Palestine – States Urged to Cease Relations Supporting Israel’s Unlawful Occupation and Apartheid
On 31 October 2024, Law for Palestine participated in a high-level briefing organised by the UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People (CEIRPP) 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,” addressed critical legal and human rights issues, including recent insights from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) Advisory Opinion on Israel’s policies in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. The event drew a diverse audience of state representatives, NGOs, researchers, journalists, and human rights defenders.
At the outset, Cheikh Niang (Senegal), Chair of the Committee, praised UN experts for their extensive work in gathering and examining evidence, noting their role in separating fact from misinformation. He emphasised that these efforts are “vital, not only for telling the story of Gaza, but, more importantly, for ensuring accountability.”
UN experts highlighted the importance of calling a genocide a genocide, urging states to reconsider their roles to prevent complicity in crimes against the Palestinian people.
Anisha Patel: States Must Uphold Legal Obligations or Risk Complicity in Israel’s Atrocities
Anisha Patel, Governing Council Member and Head of Content and Discourse at Law for Palestine, underscored that Israel’s settler-colonial assault on Palestinians in Gaza represents the latest chapter in a Nakba spanning over 76 years. “We are all too familiar with the haunting pleas from Palestinian journalists who are being brutally targeted for broadcasting their own destruction in real time,” she remarked, highlighting that the first pages of Gaza’s Health Ministry’s latest casualty report are filled with the names of Palestinian children under one year old. “The international community is already painfully aware of these atrocities,” she added, noting documented evidence of children and civilians suffering devastating impacts from heavy bombardment.
Patel stressed that her appeal was not merely for compassion but for urgent action based on states’ legal obligations and the severe consequences of inaction to halt genocide, end settler colonialism, and dismantle apartheid. “If moral considerations alone had any impact, we wouldn’t still be here pleading for a ceasefire,” she observed.
She outlined the legal responsibilities and potential repercussions for states that fail to act against Israel’s genocidal practices and continued occupation of the Palestinian territory (oPt), which constitute acts of aggression and racial segregation in violation of peremptory norms. Citing ICJ findings, Patel affirmed that states supporting Israel’s actions may face legal consequences. “A comprehensive embargo on arms, munitions, and military equipment is not only a fundamental obligation arising from the Court’s advisory opinion but also from the Genocide Convention,” she stated.
Non-assistance obligation extends to diplomatic, economic, cultural, and academic ties that sustain Israel’s unlawful actions and apartheid
In addition to the arms embargo, the non-assistance obligation extends to 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.
She noted that Israel’s settler-colonial infrastructure has made it virtually impossible to distinguish between the state and its operations in the oPt, adding that, according to the Commission of Inquiry, the burden of proving any such distinction rests with Israel itself.
In her closing remarks, Patel echoed the call from experts for a collective commitment to preventing genocide, emphasising the responsibility of the international community and civil society to uphold international law. “This commitment is essential not only for safeguarding Palestinians’ inalienable rights to self-determination but also for preserving the legitimacy of the UN Charter and the international legal order as a whole.”
Francesca Albanese Calls for Global Recognition 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.
“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,”
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. When asked by journalists to describe the current situation, he said, “I am simply speechless.” Even “cold-hearted, hard-shelled diplomats” have told him how overwhelmed and saddened they are, he added.
Referring to the Commission’s October 2022 report, he explained that it concluded Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory had become unlawful, recommending that the General Assembly refer the situation to the International Court of Justice. “To my surprise, the Assembly acted on it almost immediately,” he said, also noting the Court’s July 2024 opinion that Israel’s occupation is unlawful and must end immediately.
When journalists ask me to describe what is happening, I say, “I am just speechless.”
Mr Sidoti noted the Commission also has an accountability mandate, and that it provides information to the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court on a monthly basis. “We collect information, verify it, draw conclusions as to its significance in relation to international crimes, and provide it to the Prosecutor,” he said. The Commission has also supplied information to the South African Government for its case under the Genocide Convention before the International Court of Justice. However, Mr Sidoti expressed regret that, despite these efforts and Security Council resolutions, they have not prevented a single death in Gaza.
Diana Buttu Exposes the Human Cost of Israeli Aggression: The International Community’s Complicity in the ‘Axis of Genocide
Also speaking in the event was Diana Buttu, Member of the Board of Commissioners — Independent Commission for Human Rights of Palestine, who 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.
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.
