Press Releases

(Geneva, 7 September 2026)

^{As the ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip reaches its third year, BADIL Resource Center and the Global Palestinian Refugee and IDP Network (GPRN), call on the UN and its member states at the 63rd regular session of the Human Rights Council to hold the Israeli regime accountable for its systemic and systematic crimes. The letter draws attention to Israeli genocide, forced displacement and transfer, colonization and apartheid and its violations as a UN member state. The letter sent to UNHRC missions follows.}

^{Dear Mission Representative,}

^{Through ongoing Israeli crimes and with member states’ tacit agreement and explicit complicity and the inaction of the UN, the Palestinian people’s inalienable rights to self-determination and return continue to be denied. Through the inaction and complicity of Member States, Israeli genocide, forced displacement, colonization and apartheid not only continue but are being normalized.} 

^{In the upcoming HRC session, during relevant debates, including under the General Debates of Items 3, 4, and 7, we call on UN member states to call to the attention of member states and the Council these Israeli violations and crimes.} 

^{As the genocide reaches its third year, over two million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have been repeatedly displaced and remain displaced, while the Israeli regime continues to perpetrate genocide through:}  

• ^{The farce of the 11 October 2025 “ceasefire” agreement and the utilization of the Board of Peace (BoP) to manage the genocide.}
• ^{Killing over 1300 Palestinians since the “ceasefire,” bringing the total number of Palestinians killed to 73,438.}  
• ^{Repeatedly shifting the “yellow line”, with minimum 67% under Israeli forces control;}
• ^{The BoP continues its goal of dismantling UNRWA while it fails to provide adequate aid, essential goods and critical services resulting in a rapidly deteriorating humanitarian situation that is contributing to the genocide. UNRWA’s existence and operations are contingent on the full implementation of UNGA Resolution 194, not on the aspiration of Palestinian statehood and reject any measures to replace UNRWA with other agencies or host states.} 
• ^{The BoP “Roadmap” which seeks to reorganize Palestinian political life while making survival and humanitarian relief contingent upon the dismantling of Palestinian resistance, rather than dismantling the structures that produced genocide.} 

^{In the West Bank, over 48,000 Palestinians have been displaced since the start of the genocide through the Israeli regime’s Decisive Plan.} 

• ^{34,028 refugees remain displaced from the camps of Jenin, Tulkarem, and Nur Shams by “Operation Iron Wall.”} 
• ^{14,239 Palestinians have been displaced from other areas of the West Bank; and since the start of 2026, Palestinians have been displaced at an average of 17 persons per day due to colonizer violence, the closure apparatus (gates and other movement restrictions), land confiscation and home demolitions. All of which are escalating exponentially.}  
• ^{Colonizers’ attacks, killing and destruction are an integral part of the Israeli regime’s colonial expansion and not just the extremist actions of a radical few. Statements of condemnation are meaningless as long as states remain complicit in the ongoing genocide and colonization of Palestine through the political, economic, and military relations that sustain Israeli settler colonialism. The imposition of individual sanctions against specific colonizers or their affiliated entities, as well as measures banning imports from so-called "illegal settlements only," fail to confront the colonial system that produces and sustains this goal. Such measures reinforce the misleading justification that these crimes are committed by isolated extremists acting independently of the Israeli regime.} 

^{The Israeli regime has repeatedly violated its obligations as a UN member state under the UN Charter (General Convention) and the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations (1946). Most recently, on 25 August, Israeli forces raided and seized the UNRWA Kalandia Training Center, and evicted its personnel.}

^{In addition, the Israeli regime has killed 397 UN personnel (including 391 UNRWA staff) as of April 2026 and persisted in the wanton destruction of UN property and premises in the OPT.}  

^{Furthermore, the Israeli regime has a long history of breaches of its UN obligations through the denial of access to:} 

• ^{UNRWA providing aid and services to internally displaced Palestinians inside the Green Line (1952);}
• ^{UN investigation of the Kufr Qasem massacre (1956);}
• ^{UN Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People and Other Arabs of the Occupied Territories (1968);}
• ^{The United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, commonly known as the Goldstone Report (2008-2009);}
• ^{The 2012 International Fact-Finding Mission on Israeli Settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT);}
• ^{The 2014 UN Commission of Inquiry (COI);}
• ^{The Independent International COI on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel (2022);}
• ^{The Special Rapporteur (SR) on the OPT, since 2008; the SR on violence against women (2015) and the Working Group on Involuntary or Enforced Disappearances (April 2025)}
• ^{Heads of UN Humanitarian Organizations: the former Commissioner-General of UNRWA, Philippe Lazzarini, since June 2024; Ajith Sunghay, head of the UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR) in the OPT in February 2025; and, in July 2025, the head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in the West Bank and Gaza, Jonathan Whittall.} 
• ^{UNRWA, through its banning laws which have been enforced since January 2025.} 

^{BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights and the Global Palestinian Refugee and IDP Network (GPRN) call on UN member states to fulfill their obligations and end their complicity in the ongoing and escalating Israeli crimes through the following measures:} 

1. ^{Impose diplomatic, economic and military sanctions on the Israeli regime to bring an end to all Israeli crimes and its system of domination over the Palestinian people and mandatory Palestine: forced displacement and transfer, colonization and apartheid.} 
2. ^{Denounce and boycott the Board of Peace and its roadmaps as mechanisms of managing Israeli genocide and domination of the Gaza Strip.}  
3. ^{Adopt a rights-based reparative approach to reconstruction in the Gaza Strip, and the refugee camps of Tulkarm, Nur Shams and Jenin.}
4. ^{Ensure that UNRWA has the full political and financial backing it needs to implement its mandate through sanctions on the Israeli regime to renounce its banning laws and increased unconditional funding to UNRWA to meet its program budget.} 
5. ^{Call for the revocation of the Israeli regime’s UN membership and privileges;}
6. ^{Freeze or ban the activities of Zionist-Israeli organizations in your jurisdiction;}
7. ^{Reject or sever the normalization of relations with the Israeli regime, such as the Isaac and Abraham Accords.}