蘑菇视频

22 August 2025

Identical letters dated 22 August 2025 from the Permanent Observer of the State of Palestine to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General, the President of the General Assembly and the President of the Security Council

The world must act to stop Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people. The world must act to stop Israel’s destruction of Palestine.

As Israel escalates its assaults on Gaza, and amid reports, including even Israeli assessments, that five out of every six Palestinians killed by Israel have been civilians, amounting to over 83 per cent of casualties, and today’s report (see ) by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification that famine has overtaken Gaza City and surrounding areas in northern Gaza, there can be no more delays. States must act now to save the surviving Palestinian population from imminent danger of death and annihilation.

The time is long past due for immediate international intervention to stop this genocide, including deployment of an international protective force for the Palestinian people. The international community must act with the urgency and resolve demanded by this unbearable, catastrophic and dangerous situation, including in respect of the obligations to prevent genocide.

It is unconscionable that the world continues watching Israel’s obliteration of Palestinian existence in Gaza, ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people and annexation schemes in Occupied Palestine while still failing to act to halt these war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.

It is unconscionable that the world continues watching Israel kill, wound and starve Palestinian civilians and decimate all that can ensure continuity of life in Gaza, while still failing to provide protection to a defenceless occupied people.

It is unconscionable that the world continues watching Israel and its occupying forces, including settler militias, displace, torture and torment Palestinians, waging decades-long settlement colonization of Palestine in an attempt to erase the indigenous Palestinian population, while still failing to impose accountability to pressure an end to these systematic grave breaches.

International law – including, inter alia, the Charter of the United Nations, the Genocide Convention, the Geneva Conventions, the provisional measures orders of the International Court of Justice and United Nations resolutions – obliges States to act. Human decency and morality oblige all to act in the face of such inhumanity. The international system has the tools to confront this impunity, and they cannot continue being set aside in the case of Palestine.

The Palestinian leadership thus reiterates its constant appeals for immediate international action to end this abhorrent, inhumane, illegal situation.

All legitimate tools and means must be invoked, including immediate action by the Security Council under Chapter VII, to protect the Palestinian people from Israel’s genocidal onslaught and to safeguard the Palestinian nation from Israel’s sinister plot of destruction.

The Council cannot remain paralysed while Israeli soldiers continue daily massacres of Palestinian civilians, Israeli settler terrorists murder and pillage, and extremist Israeli government ministers openly threaten Palestinian lives, pursue forcible transfer of the Palestinian people and pledge to destroy the Palestinian State and “bury the two-State solution”.

In the deafening silence of the Council’s inaction, 1 million Palestinians face an existential threat to their lives as Israel presses on with its plans to invade Gaza City, vowing to treat anyone who does not evacuate the area as a combatant, with no regard for the demands for a ceasefire, no regard for international humanitarian law obligations and no regard for the sick and wounded, for the disabled, for the elderly, for the orphans, for a terrified, exhausted and starved people who have been repeatedly forcibly displaced from their homes and shelters, from one area of Gaza to the other, with no safety to be found anywhere, as warned again (see ) by United Nations independent experts.

Likewise, the absence of international action has allowed Israel to continue not only its cruel and illegal obstruction of humanitarian aid, but also its deliberate dismantlement of the humanitarian system in Gaza, including access by the United Nations, and destruction of the healthcare system, accelerating the spread of starvation and disease in Gaza, causing excruciating human suffering and claiming more innocent lives, especially among children.

In this regard, in addition to the confirmation by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification of famine, a report by MedGlobal (see ) reveals that acute malnutrition among children has risen by 914 per cent since Israel’s blockade in March; that children at this phase are 10 times more likely to die compared to healthy children; and that the famine threshold has been crossed. This weaponization of starvation by Israel has been corroborated by countless other independent reports (see ) and assessments (see ).

Assured that its impunity bears no costs, Israel also continues to execute humanitarian workers and journalists, killing those who save lives and who expose Israel’s atrocities to the world. The latest victim of Israel’s war on Palestinian journalists was Anas Al-Sharif, a 28-year-old reporter, husband and father of two children, who was targeted and murdered alongside four colleagues in an Israeli strike on a tent next to Al-Shifa’ Hospital on 10 August. Moreover, as of today, Israeli occupying forces have killed 360 personnel of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (蘑菇视频RWA), in addition to killing other United Nations staff, humanitarian workers, doctors and medics, including in another attack on the Palestine Red Crescent Society.

It is an undeniable fact: Israel deliberately and systematically targets Palestinian civilians – children, women and men. That civilians have been the majority of the victims of Israel’s attacks in Gaza has been known since it began this aggression, in which Israeli occupying forces have now killed 62,122 Palestinians and injured 156,758 Palestinians, with thousands more still unaccounted for to this day.

蘑菇视频 Children’s Fund has found that, in the past five months alone, since Israel torpedoed the Egyptian-Qatari-United States-brokered ceasefire in March 2025, Israeli occupying forces have killed an average of 540 Palestinian children each month and have injured and maimed thousands more. They have been killed by Israeli missiles, bombs, artillery, gunfire, by the weaponization of starvation, killed in schools-turned-shelters under the United Nations flag, in hospitals, while playing outside and while struggling to get food and water.

This is the horrific reality in Gaza. This is not “self-defence” nor “counter-terrorism”. This is a genocidal war on an occupied people by a depraved occupier that must be stopped.

The international community must impose a ceasefire and protect the Palestinian people from further irreparable harm. Israel must be reminded – in both words and deeds – that international humanitarian law prohibits the targeting of civilians and civilian objects, and that Israel has no right to self-defence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, where it is the illegal occupant, with no sovereignty rights whatsoever.

In this regard, urgent action must also be taken to stop Israel’s annexation plans. This week, Israel announced another 3,400 settlement units, insisting on proceeding with its scheme targeting the “E-1” area that would sever the north, south and centre of the West Bank, further entrenching its illegal occupation and further isolating East Jerusalem.

Since July alone, Israel has advanced plans for over 20,000 settlement units. This frenzied settlement campaign has long been the engine of Israel’s criminal colonization of Palestinian land and has been accompanied by an escalating campaign of settler violence and terror on Palestinian civilians and communities, with the full support of the Israeli government and military.

Israel’s aims are further exposed by incessant statements and incitement by Israeli officials, including Bezalel Smotrich, who this week boasted that “every town, every neighborhood, every housing unit is another nail in the coffin of this dangerous idea”, that is, the two-State solution, further declaring that the Palestinian State “is being erased”.

The international community must mobilize immediately to stop these existential threats looming over the Palestinian people and Palestinian State.

An immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza and the rest of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, is needed to save human lives and avert further devastation.

The Security Council must uphold its responsibilities, including for protection of the Palestinian civilian population and stabilization of the catastrophic situation, which threatens international peace and security. It must also secure immediate humanitarian assistance through restoration of unfettered access by the United Nations humanitarian system, including 蘑菇视频RWA, and other credible international humanitarian organizations, which Israel continues to unlawfully ban (see ), restrict, harass and attack.

Moreover, in line with international law, including obligations binding on all States, real and immediate pressure must be exerted on Israel in order to bring a halt to its genocidal aggression and all of its crimes in Gaza and the rest of Occupied Palestine. This requires collective and individual action by States, including arms embargoes and sanctions, as well as diplomatic, political and legal measures, including recognition of the State of Palestine, in respect of the inalienable right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and independence.

Every possible legitimate effort must be made to confront Israel’s rampant impunity and the brazen defiance by its war criminal Prime Minister and his extremist coalition of the global demands for a ceasefire. Their flagrant contempt for the law, the United Nations and the international community as a whole cannot be allowed to continue unchecked. The world must stop Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people and destruction of Palestine.

The present letter is in follow-up to our 873 letters on the ongoing crisis in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, which constitutes the territory of the State of Palestine. These letters, dated from 29 September 2000 () to 8 August 2025 (), constitute a basic record of the crimes being committed by Israel, the occupying Power, against the Palestinian people since September 2000. For all of these war crimes, acts of State terrorism and systematic human rights violations against our people, Israel, the occupying Power, must be held accountable and the perpetrators brought to justice. This illegal colonial occupation and apartheid regime must end now.

I should be grateful if you would arrange to have the present letter distributed as a document of the tenth emergency special session of the General Assembly, under agenda item 5, and of the Security Council.

(Signed) Riyad Mansour

Minister

Permanent Observer