Dreams amid the rubble: Gaza’s women speak of homes, loss and hungry children. Displaced people in Gaza are living among the ruins of destroyed buildings. Credit: UN News

By Human Rights Watch
NEW YORK, Jul 23 2025 (IPS)

United Nations member countries should use the ministerial-level conference on Palestine on July 28-29, 2025, to publicly commit to concrete actions aimed at ending decades of impunity for Israeli authorities’ violations of international humanitarian and human rights law against Palestinians, Human Rights Watch said today.

The High-Level Conference on the Two-State Solution and Peace in the Middle East, co-hosted by France and Saudi Arabia, was initially scheduled for June, but was postponed when Israel initiated a military operation against Iran.

The conference will now have two segments, the ministerial meeting on July 28-29 and a second segment to include heads of state and government ahead of the UN General Assembly’s annual gathering of world leaders in September.

“It’s essential for governments to address Israel’s grave abuses by committing to concrete, timebound measures, including targeted sanctions, arms embargoes, suspending preferential trade agreements, and a clear commitment to support the enforcement of all International Criminal Court arrest warrants,” said Bruno Stagno, chief advocacy officer at Human Rights Watch. “More platitudes about a two-state solution and peace process will do nothing to advance the conference’s goals, nor to halt the extermination of Palestinians in Gaza.”

The conference is a response to the landmark July 2024 advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian Territory, which determined that Israel’s decades-long occupation is unlawful and breaches Palestinians’ right to self-determination.

The court found that Israel was responsible for apartheid and other serious abuses against the Palestinians, and reiterated that its settlements are illegal and should be dismantled. It also said the Palestinians were entitled to reparations.

A September 2024 UN General Assembly resolution endorsed the ICJ ruling and set a one-year deadline for Israel to end “its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT).”

The conference is taking place in the context of ongoing hostilities in Israeli-occupied Gaza, including war crimes, the crimes against humanity of extermination and forced displacement, and acts of genocide.

These crimes are in contravention of three binding ICJ rulings in a genocide case brought by South Africa. The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants for Israel’s prime minister and former defense minister for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

States parties to the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Genocide Convention) have an obligation to “employ all tools reasonably at their disposal” to prevent genocide. That obligation is triggered when a state learns, or should normally have learned, of a serious risk that genocide may be committed.

That threshold of a serious risk of genocide was crossed long ago, Human Rights Watch said. This has been clear from the ICJ rulings ordering provisional measures in South Africa’s genocide case. South Africa brought the case in response to Israeli forces’ systematic destruction of homes, apartment buildings, orchards and fields, schools, hospitals, and water and sanitation facilities in Gaza, as well as Israel’s use of starvation as a weapon of war.

Recently, some governments have taken long overdue steps that others should emulate. On July 16, 12 countries committed to concrete measures to “break the ties of complicity with Israel’s campaign of devastation in Palestine,” including preventing the transfer of arms to Israel.

The United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Slovenia, and Norway have imposed targeted sanctions on two Israeli government ministers, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich. The UK has suspended free-trade negotiations with Israel and announced a review of the 2030 Road Map for UK-Israel bilateral relations.

The European Union recently found Israel in breach of the human rights clause of the bilateral EU-Israel Association Agreement, though EU governments remain divided on whether to suspend the agreement. Nine EU governments have asked the EU Commission to introduce a ban on trade and business with illegal settlements, while Irish authorities have proposed a unilateral ban.

Some governments have moved to join the many that recognize a Palestinian state, which is already a state party to key human rights and criminal law treaties, including the Rome Statute.

Much more is needed, though, to stop the Israeli authorities’ extermination, persecution, and apartheid against Palestinians.

At the conference, UN member governments should commit to concrete, time-bound steps to comply with their own obligations under international law, including the Genocide Convention, and to increase pressure on Israeli authorities to comply with theirs, including:

Suspending military assistance and arms sales to Israel.

Imposing targeted sanctions, including travel bans and asset freezes, against Israeli officials and others credibly implicated in ongoing serious violations.

Banning all trade and business with illegal settlements.

Suspending political, economic, and trade deals with Israel.

Publicly expressing support for the ICC, strongly condemning efforts to intimidate or interfere with its work, and committing to support the execution of all its warrants.

Publicly supporting and fully funding the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), the UN agency that provides aid to Palestinians.

Addressing root causes, including by recognizing Israeli authorities’ crimes of apartheid and persecution against Palestinians.

Reconstituting the UN Special Committee Against Apartheid or creating a new version based on its model focused on Israel/Palestine and other contemporary situations for which there are reasonable grounds to believe that the crime against humanity of apartheid is being committed.

Pressing the Israeli government to recognize the right of Palestinians, including refugees, to return to their homes.

Supporting the creation of an international register of damages caused by unlawful Israeli action to persons in Israel and the OPT, to calculate reparations.

During the conference, the UN General Assembly should adopt a resolution that spells out these commitments with a clear timetable for their implementation. The assembly should periodically report on compliance with its commitments and hold public meetings on those reports. The conference should not be a one-off event.

The General Assembly has already proven it can take meaningful steps on Syria, Myanmar, Russia, and Israel/Palestine. The assembly has already called on states to restrict arms sales to Israel. But it can go further by endorsing a comprehensive, global arms embargo and regularly reporting on which governments continue to supply Israeli authorities with arms and munitions.

The UN Security Council should have taken such steps long ago but is paralyzed by the United States, which is complicit in Israel’s war crimes with its ongoing arms transfers and determined to ensure impunity for Israeli abuses. The US sanctions against ICC officials and the UN special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the OPT, Francesca Albanese, are examples.

“This conference should demonstrate that governments have finally decided to get serious about human rights and international law when it comes to Israel and Palestine,” Stagno said. “Without clear action from governments, Israeli authorities will only continue to exterminate and expel Palestinians.”

https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/07/22/un-end-impunity-for-israeli-crimes-against-palestinians
https://www.hrw.org/middle-east/north-africa/israel/palestine

IPS UN Bureau

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