Three Years of Genocidal War: The Palestinian People Remain Steadfast in Their Struggle for Life, Freedom and Dignity
On the third anniversary of the beginning of Israel’s genocidal war against the Palestinian people, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates of the State of Palestine condemns, in the strongest terms, the continued genocidal campaign waged by Israel, the occupying power, against the Palestinian people throughout the occupied State of Palestine.
Since the beginning of the genocide, more than 74,000 Palestinians have been killed, approximately 70% of them women and children, and nearly 175,000 injured by Israeli military attacks on Gaza. Nearly 1,500 Palestinians have also been killed during the ceasefire period. The reality is that Palestinians continue to be killed, wounded and terrorized on a daily basis, and their suffering has not ended with the declaration of a ceasefire.
The ongoing destruction, restrictions on humanitarian assistance, and closure of crossings are the result of deliberate Israeli policies and Israel’s refusal to fulfill its international legal obligations, including those arising from UN Security Council Resolution 2803 and the Trump plan, while its continued control over approximately 70% of the Gaza Strip seeks to impose a new reality on the ground.
The scale of the catastrophe is immense. Israel has employed starvation, rape, sexual violence and other grave violations as weapons of war, while normalizing the targeting of protected civilian sites, including homes, hospitals, schools, shelters and tents housing displaced Palestinians. The impunity afforded to Israel has encouraged the continuation of these crimes despite United Nations resolutions, international action, and the binding provisional measures ordered by the International Court of Justice, including measures aimed at preventing acts falling within the scope of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
What is taking place in the Gaza Strip cannot be separated from the broader colonial reality imposed on the Palestinian people throughout the occupied State of Palestine by the illegal Israeli occupation. In the West Bank, including occupied Jerusalem, ethnic cleansing and forced displacement of Palestinian families continue through annexation, settlement expansion, settler terrorism, seizure of Palestinian land, withholding of Palestinian funds, killings, arrests, home demolitions, land confiscation, checkpoints and iron gates.
These policies constitute an existential threat to the Palestinian people. More than 1,200 Palestinians, including 210 children, have been also killed in the West Bank since the beginning of Israel’s genocidal war.
The international community now faces a fundamental test of the credibility and authority of the international legal order. The continued impunity of the occupying power threatens not only the Palestinian people, but also the foundations of international law, justice and accountability upon which the international system is built, and peace and security in our region and globally. The failure to recognize the genocidal nature of what has taken place in Gaza, as established through international law and reflected in United Nations documentation and reporting, and to act swiftly to ensure accountability and halt these atrocities has contributed to the continuation of these crimes and to Israel’s increasing disregard for its obligations under international law.
The international community must move from statements to concrete action. It must take effective measures to confront the unlawful system of occupation and colonial domination, including through sanctions against the occupying power and settlers, an end to the transfer of weapons that enable violations, a prohibition on trade in settlement goods, and accountability for entities, individuals and companies involved in or benefiting from the settlement enterprise and the occupation as a whole.
The Ministry calls on the international community to act now to end Israel’s unlawful occupation, uphold the Palestinian people’s rights to self-determination, independence and return and assist in their realization, and provide effective international protection for the Palestinian people and their land. Gaza remains an integral part of the State of Palestine, with East Jerusalem as its capital, and Israel must withdraw fully and halt its annexation attempts.
After three years of genocidal war, justice cannot be selective, peace cannot rest on impunity or forced demographic and geographic change, and lasting stability cannot exist under occupation.
The time has come to move from documenting violations to preventing them; from statements to concrete action; from managing the conflict to ending it; and from preserving the status quo to enforcing international law and respecting the inalienable human rights and dignity of the Palestinian people and their right to live in freedom, peace and security in their land.