[HRC59 Statement] HRN Calls for Israel to End its Commission of Genocide and other International Crimes in Gaza, OPT

June 7, 2025

Palestine (OPT), Armed conflict, Extrajudicial killings / war crime and crimes against humanity, Human Rights Violation under armed conflicts/military operation, UN Activity

HRN has submitted a statement to the 59th session of the Human Rights Council condemning the Israeli government’s recent escalation of attacks on civilian areas, forced displacement, and severe restrictions on aid in Gaza, which constitute war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. The statement calls on the government to immediately cease all international crimes against Palestinians; to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure in Gaza, including facilitating sufficient aid shipments into Gaza; and to end its illegal occupation of Palestinian territory. We further call on the international community to implement a weapons embargo and sanctions against Israel and to support accountability measures against Israeli officials for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.

The full text of the statement is below and in PDF format from the following link: 33948_Gaza_A_HRC_59_NGO_Sub_EN.pdf

Human Rights Now Calls for Israel to End its Commission of Genocide and other International Crimes in Gaza, Occupied Palestinian Territory

Human Rights Now (HRN) condemns the Israeli government’s recent escalation of attacks on civilian areas, forced displacement, and severe restrictions on aid in Gaza, Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), which constitute war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. HRN calls on Israel to immediately end its commission of international crimes in Gaza and fulfill its obligations under international law to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure, restore aid shipments into Gaza to a level sufficient to fully meet the population’s needs, and end its illegal occupation of the OPT.

1. Impending famine and mass starvation in Gaza

From early March to mid-May, Israel completely banned humanitarian aid entering Gaza, including food, water, medicine, and fuel, resulting in malnutrition deaths[1] and impending famine and mass starvation. The ban constituted a further violation of the ICJ’s January, March, and May 2024 provisional measures, according to which Israel was required to immediately ensure unhindered provision at scale of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance, in full co-operation with the United Nations.[2] With more than 80% of Palestinians in Gaza relying on food provided by aid organizations, the ban subjected them to severe food insecurity.[3] After threats from key allies, on May 19 Israeli authorities reportedly cleared nine aid trucks to enter Gaza, less than 2% of pre-war daily shipments and wholly inadequate to meet the need.[4]

According to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), in May 2025, 93% of the 2.1 million Palestinian population in Gaza face acute food insecurity at IPC Phase 3 or above (Crisis, Emergency, and Catastrophe), with 22% (over 495,000 people) projected to be at the Phase 5 Catastrophe level (extreme food shortage, exhaustion of coping capacities, and starvation) for the June-September period, and 33% (745,000 people) at the Emergency level (high malnutrition) if food aid is not forthcoming.[5] IPC also projects that “nearly 71,000 annual cases of acute malnutrition among children aged 6 to 59 months, including 14,100 severe cases, are expected to occur between April 2025 and March 2026.”[6] On May 13, it was reported that, contrary to the government’s public statements, Israeli military officials have privately concluded that Palestinians in Gaza face widespread starvation without restored food aid.[7]

The executive director of the UN World Food Programme Cindy McCain stated that “It’s imperative that the international community acts urgently to get aid flowing into Gaza again. If we wait until after a famine is confirmed, it will already be too late for many people,”[8] and WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stated that “We do not need to wait for a declaration of famine in Gaza to know that people are already starving, sick and dying, while food and medicines are minutes away across the border.”[9]

The intentional restriction on food and other essential aid to a population under military control is a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law, as noted by the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict’s co-director Janina Dill, who stated that “Enforcing a military blockade with the knowledge that it will starve the civilian population is a violation of international law” and UNRWA’s Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini, who labeled the ban a “weaponisation of humanitarian aid … that will be qualified as a war crime.”[10] In the current context, it also constitutes a crime against humanity, and a form of genocide (the deliberate infliction of conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of the Palestinian people in Gaza).

Moreover, Israel’s plan to restrict aid distributions to south Gaza using private security companies requires forced displacement of Palestinians to avoid starvation and abandons north Gaza to famine.[11] UN officials rejected participation in the plan due to it violating its core principles.[12]

2. Plans for illegal mass forced displacement of Palestinians

On May 5 it was reported that Israel’s administration plans to seize the Gaza Strip and stay indefinitely,[13] in further violation of its international obligation to end its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory as rapidly as possible.[14] Israel’s broader plan includes the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of people in northern Gaza to Gaza’s south.[15] Forced displacement is a war crime, and in the current context would also constitute a crime against humanity and a form of genocide. On May 17, the Trump administration proposed a plan for the removal of one million Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to Libya, later backed by Netanyahu, which the civil rights NGO CAIR’s director Nihad Awad stated would represent, if true, “an unprecedented act of ethnic cleansing unseen in modern history.”[16]

70% of Gaza is already off limits to Palestinians,[17] and the Israeli government’s plan squeezes the 2.1 million population into a tiny area, severely raising their vulnerability and creating intolerable conditions pressuring mass numbers of the population to leave Gaza, a form of illegal forced removal.[18]

3. Continuing attacks against civilians

As of 14 May 2025, over 53,500 Palestinians have been reportedly killed in the Gaza conflict, most civilians.[19] In July 2024, a British medical school team estimated a more accurate number to be 64,260 killed by 30 June 2024.[20] On 17 May 2025, Israeli forces greatly expanded the Gaza conflict to “seize controlled areas,” beginning with air strikes in northern Gaza that reportedly killed at least 108 Palestinians, mostly women and children, with some officials stating 250 to 300 were killed and thousands more once again being ordered to flee the area.[21] UK, France, and Canada condemned the escalation and aid blockade as “egregious” and threatened “concrete actions in response” if Israel continues them.[22]

Israeli forces also continue to strike protected civilian facilities including the following.

Hospitals. On May 7, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported that every Gaza hospital had been damaged or destroyed and, as of May, only half were partially functional.[23] The Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis was attacked twice within seven weeks over the last two months, with the latest strike on 17 May killing at least 18 people.[24] OHCHR’s December 2024 thematic report on Israel’s hospital attacks condemned Israel’s “pattern of deadly attacks on and near hospitals in Gaza.”[25]
Displacement Shelters. By January 2025, 92% of all housing and more than 70% of all structures in Gaza were destroyed creating massive displacement.[26] Despite this, Israel has continued to attack shelters for displaced people. On 12 May 2025, an Israeli air attack on a school housing more than 2000 displaced people killed at least 10, including women and children, with dozens wounded.[27]

4. Continued dispossession of Palestinians

At the root of the conflict is Israel’s continued illegal dispossession of Palestinians. In addition to its plans to remove Palestinians from Gaza, the Israeli government is also expanding control over the West Bank, [28] despite the ICJ’s July 2024 Advisory Opinion confirming the illegality of Israel’s continued occupation of Palestinian territory and its obligation to withdraw as soon as possible, and the fact that Israel is practicing racial segregation and apartheid in the West Bank. On 12 May 2025, Israel’s cabinet significantly extended its apartheid policy by legislating sole responsibility for land registration to itself, in order to favor settlers, for Area C of the West Bank, effectively annexing the majority of Palestinian land to Israel.[29] A subsequent OHCHR report expressed alarm at the decision, calling it “the latest tool used by Israel to acquire Palestinian land and consolidate the unlawful annexation of the West Bank.”[30]

5. Recommendations

HRN condemns the Israeli government’s continued attacks on civilians, forced displacement, aid restrictions, and dispossession of Palestinians and demands that it:

• Immediately end its commission of genocide, and other international crimes, against the Palestinian people;

• Fulfill its obligation to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure in Gaza;

• Immediately facilitate aid shipments into Gaza at a level sufficient to fully meet the humanitarian needs of the population;

• End its illegal occupation of the OPT.

We further call on the international community and individual states to:

• Immediately implement effective measures, including military and economic sanctions, to compel the Israeli government to end its violations of international law against the Palestinian people and facilitate the unimpeded flow of aid into Gaza;

• Support accountability measures against Israeli officials for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.

__________

[1] https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/05/1163166

[2] Order of 26 January 2024 (para. 86), Order of 28 March 2024 (para. 51), and Order of 24 May 2024 (para. 57).

[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/13/world/middleeast/gaza-famine-starvation-israel.html

[4] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/19/benjamin-netanyahu-israel-take-control-gaza-uk-france-canada-threaten-action

[5] https://www.ipcinfo.org/ipc-country-analysis/details-map/en/c/1157065/ https://abcnews.go.com/International/gazas-entire-population-faces-critical-levels-hunger-report/story?id=121706450 https://www.aljazeera.com/video/newsfeed/2025/5/12/one-in-five-people-in-gaza-face-starvation-famine-watchdog-warns https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz63jnx52l0o

[6] https://www.ipcinfo.org/fileadmin/user_upload/ipcinfo/docs/IPC_Gaza_Strip_Acute_Food_Insecurity_Malnutrition_Apr_Sept2025_Special_Snapshot.pdf

[7] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/13/world/middleeast/gaza-famine-starvation-israel.html

[8] https://www.unicefusa.org/press/risk-famine-children-across-gaza-new-report-says

[9] https://www.who.int/news/item/12-05-2025-people-in-gaza-starving–sick-and-dying-as-aid-blockade-continues

[10] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNkVbcoKMxA ; https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-hamas-war-news-05-05-2025-d22caabfd2cf89e83fe06e649e6438ba