[HRC62 Written Statement] The Government of Israel Must End the Violence and International Violations against Palestinians

May 25, 2026

Palestine (OPT), Accountability for gross human rights violations, Extrajudicial killings / war crime and crimes against humanity, Human Rights Violation under armed conflicts/military operation, UN Activity

HRN has submitted a written statement to the 62nd session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva strongly condemning the continued occupation of Occupied Palestinian Territory by Israel and its commission of serious international violations against Palestinians. The full statement is available below and in pdf format from the following link:

The Government of Israel Must End the Violence and International Violations against Palestinians

Human Rights Now (HRN) strongly condemns the continued occupation of Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) by Israel and its commission of serious international violations against Palestinians. OPT continues to face an acute protection and humanitarian crisis driven by violence, movement and aid restrictions, and the collapse of essential services. HRN demands that the government of Israel immediately end all violence and international violations against Palestinians and end its illegal occupation of OPT, and we call on the international community to implement effective measures against Israel, including economic sanctions and an arms embargo, to end these violations and to recognize the state of Palestine.

The intolerable situation for Palestinians in Gaza

Despite a decrease in the scale of hostilities since the so-called ceasefire, killing and infrastructure destruction persist in Gaza, while Israel maintains unlawful military control over the area. Since the ceasefire, Israeli forces have moved the “Yellow Line” in eastern Gaza and neighborhoods in Gaza City, demarcating the territory that it controls and from which Palestinian movement is barred, beyond the agreed boundaries, pushing Palestinians into smaller areas and causing further displacement.^[1] Israel now controls more than half of Gaza, in flagrant contravention of the ceasefire terms and in continuation of an unlawful and disproportionate military siege.^[2]

Ongoing attacks on civilians and civilian objects in Gaza

Ongoing Israeli military operations in Gaza have killed at least 856 Palestinians and wounded a further 2,463 since the ceasefire, underscoring the persistence and lethality of the attacks.^[3] Since October 2023, 72,135 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza and 171,830 injured.^[4] Israel has continued to regularly carry out airstrikes, artillery shelling, and gunfire across densely populated residential areas, causing civilian casualties and extensive damage to critical infrastructure, including water production facilities indispensable to civilian survival.^[5] On March 18, 414 Palestinians were killed by Israeli strikes, 174 of whom were children, and on March 23 five ambulances were attacked, killing 15 aid workers including Red Crescent paramedics and injuring two.^[6] On April 8, Israeli forces killed a journalist by a drone strike targeting the car he was in.^[7] Most recently, on May 23 an Israeli strike on a Palestinian police post killed five police officers and a 13-year-old boy, and Israeli forces also struck two residential buildings in central Gaza destroying them and wounding two.[8]

During the Gaza conflict, more than 80% of all structures have been damaged or destroyed, including all 18 hospitals in Gaza, 93% of school buildings, more than 63 university buildings. Israeli forces have regularly bombed high-rise buildings in urban areas with no indication of their military nature.^[9] These strikes display a pattern of destruction that points to the deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure.

Israel’s mass direct attacks against civilian populations and infrastructure flagrantly violate the principles of distinction and proportionality at a systematic and widespread scale, and there is evidence they are part of an intentional policy to bring about the destruction of Palestinians constituting genocide, as concluded by the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry for OPT (IICI-OPT).[10]

Humanitarian catastrophe and grave international violations in Gaza

Israel continues to disregard its obligations under international law, committing serious violations of IHL, including failure to respect and protect medical personnel, obstruction of humanitarian relief, use of starvation as a method of warfare, and the destruction of objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, in a context of total impunity.

The protracted Israeli military control over Gaza has had catastrophic and irreversible consequences for the Palestinian civilian population. Humanitarian aid volumes remain critically insufficient, falling well below the minimum thresholds required to address civilians’ needs, while Israeli authorities continue to systematically obstruct access routes.^[11] Despite the partial reopening of crossings into Gaza, only a small number of aid trucks are allowed to unload, increasing risks of famine.^[12] Aid personnel have been denied entry, and several have been subjected to arbitrary and unlawful killing in direct violation of IHL protections. In April 2026, the IPC reported that 77% of Gaza’s population, 1.6 million people, is facing high levels of acute food insecurity.^[13] Civilians in Gaza consumed less food in the first half of April than in March, and they have been compelled to resort to burning waste for cooking due to severe shortages of fuel and cooking gas, which are conditions incompatible with the minimum standards of human dignity.^[14]

The health needs caused by the conflict are also extremely concerning. Despite 50,000 people needing long-term rehabilitation care, no rehabilitation facility is fully running due to Israeli restrictions on critical supplies.^[15] In addition, Israeli authorities barred 37 international nongovernmental organizations that provide aid from operating in Gaza and the West Bank.^[16]

Israeli-issued displacement orders and the deterioration in living conditions have forcibly displaced 90% of Gaza’s Palestinian population.^[17] Israel is responsible for the widespread and systematic forcible transfer of Palestinians, amounting to a crime against humanity and war crime. Furthermore, the deliberate infliction of conditions calculated to bring about the physical destruction of Palestinians, including the destruction of structures and land essential to Palestinians, the destruction and denial of access to medical facilities, forced displacement, and the blocking of humanitarian aid, electricity, water and fuel supplies to Gaza, constitutes genocide, again as concluded by the IICI-OPT.

Civil and political rights violations

Israel also bears responsibility for gross violations of international human rights through the criminalization of speech, assembly and association, and civil society work. Police have repressed and used lethal force against those peacefully protesting the hostilities. Individuals have been arbitrarily detained and banned from social media platforms, reflecting a coordinated suppression of dissent that violates the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly. Almost all of the incitement cases opened by police under the over-broad Anti-Terrorism Law have targeted Palestinian citizens of Israel.^[18]

Moreover, Israel has unlawfully detained and deported activists and subjected them to unrelenting harassment and retaliation for their legitimate protest activities. Those under detention suffer from terrible detention conditions amounting to inhuman treatment and torture, including systematic sexual violence, in direct violation of the absolute prohibitions in the ICCPR and UN Convention Against Torture.^[19]

In particular, we condemn the Knesset’s approval of the Penal Law amendment allowing the death penalty for those convicted of murder who acted “with the intent to harm the State of Israel.” The measure imposes the death penalty as a default sentence, absent procedural guarantees, and appears strategically designed to target Palestinians.^[20] The law further allows the execution through hanging, which is considered a form of cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment by UN treaty bodies.^[21]

Violations in the West Bank

The devastating consequences of Israel’s occupation extend to the West Bank, where Israeli forces and settlers have killed at least 1,071 Palestinians, 233 of them children, between 7 October 2023 and 15 March 2026.^[22] Between 31 March and 6 April, at least 47 Israeli settler attacks against Palestinians across 36 communities in the West Bank resulted in numerous casualties and property damage.^[23]

On 31 March, Israeli forces extended a military order imposing free movement restrictions on the Tulkarm, Nur Shams, and Jenin refugee camps and adjacent neighborhoods until 31 May 2026. The order effectively blocks designated areas, conditioning any entry or exit on permits from Israeli military commanders, which can be arbitrarily restricted by location, duration, purpose, or route. This measure is part of a protracted military operation in the northern West Bank that has triggered the longest and most extensive displacement crisis in the territory since 1967, exacerbating the already intolerable occupation and discriminatory policies against Palestinians in the West Bank.^[24] According to the ICJ’s July 2024 Advisory Opinion, Israel’s continued occupation and apartheid policies in the West Bank are illegal and must end as rapidly as possible.[25]

Calls for immediate action to protect Palestinians

We demand that the government of Israel:

Immediately end all use of force in Gaza and its commission of genocide and other international crimes against the Palestinian people;
Respect its obligation to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure in Gaza;
Remove all barriers to the entry of food and humanitarian aid into Gaza and facilitate full access to essential supplies for all Palestinians;
End its illegal occupation of OPT.

We further call on the international community to:

Immediately implement effective measures, including comprehensive economic sanctions and arms embargoes, to bring an end to Israel’s gross violations of international law against Palestinians;
Support accountability measures against Israeli officials and armed forces for genocide and other international crimes;
Officially recognize the state of Palestine and support Palestinians’ right to self-determination.

__________

^[1] https://theowp.org/israel-extends-occupation-in-gaza-beyond-yellow-line/

^[2] Id.

^[3] https://www.ochaopt.org/content/humanitarian-situation-report-15-may-2026

^[4] https://www.unrwa.org/resources/reports/unrwa-situation-report-213-humanitarian-crisis-gaza-strip-and-occupied-west-bank

^[5] https://www.un.org/unispal/document/ocha-humanitarian-situation-report-10-april-2026/

^[6] https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/middle-east-and-north-africa/middle-east/israel-and-the-occupied-palestinian-territory/report-israel-and-the-occupied-palestinian-territory/

^[7] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/4/9/israel-bombed-gaza-on-36-of-the-past-40-days-while-the-war-raged-in-iran

[8] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/5/23/five-police-officers-13-year-old-boy-killed-in-israeli-attack-on-gaza; https://apnews.com/video/israeli-strikes-hit-two-buildings-in-central-gaza-hospital-officials-and-residents-say-a340213ed4244b608d578629f993511a

^[9] https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2026/05/israel-opt-israels-systematic-destruction-of-high-rise-buildings-must-be-investigated-as-war-crimes-of-wanton-destruction-and-collective-punishment/

[10] https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/09/israel-has-committed-genocide-gaza-strip-un-commission-finds

^[11] https://www.ochaopt.org/content/humanitarian-situation-report-6-march-2026