We follow the lead of Palestinian civil society:

• We demand protection and unrestricted delivery of aid to the Palestinian people.
• We demand the rejection of UNSC Resolution 2803 and encourage non-cooperation with every phase of its implementation. This means refusing to join Trump’s ‘International Stabilization Force’ and rejecting offers to join the so-called “Board of Peace” under the premise that Resolution 2803 violates the UN Charter.
• We demand a Uniting for Peace resolution that will, among many other things, deploy a UN-mandated armed multinational protective force to protect Palestinian people in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and eventually in Gaza.
• We demand an end to the continued violations of the ceasefire committed by Israel.

Key Statements:

PNGO – Palestinian Non-Governmental Organizations Network

PNGO is a civil and democratic body, which seeks to support, consolidate and strengthen the Palestinian civil society on the basis of the principles of democracy, social justice and sustainable development. It strives for the attainment of the legitimate national rights of the Palestinian people. It is a Palestinian NGO umbrella organization comprising over 140 member organizations working in different developmental fields.

STATEMENT:

PNGO asks the international community to recognize: the urgent need to provide immediate international protection to the Palestinian people. They call on the member states of the United Nations to approve the deployment of a UN-mandated armed multinational protective force in accordance with the Uniting for Peace mechanism in the General Assembly with a clear mandate to protect Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, to ensure the safe passage of goods, aid and personnel, and to implement all United Nations resolutions related to Palestine, and that these forces should be composed of countries that are not complicit with the Israeli occupation in genocide or enabling the Israeli occupation. We call on all States to reject any mechanism that does not incorporate the aforementioned principles.

READ FULL STATEMENT HERE: https://en.pngoportal.org/post/3981/Palestinian-NGOs-Network-PNGO-Affirms-Inalienable-Rights-and-Calls-for-Urgent-International-Protection

Francesca Albanese

Italian legal scholar and expert on human rights who has served as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories since 1 May 2022

STATEMENT:

International law is clear. No state may aid or assist another in committing international crimes. This is neither charity nor a matter of choice. It is binding upon you. It’s a binding obligation and violating it risks complicity. Therefore, states must secure a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, ensuring full Israeli withdrawal from all occupied Palestinian territory and the dismantlement of the settlements. Secondly, they must suspend all military, trade, and diplomatic ties with Israel until it ends and remedies its genocide, unlawful occupation and apartheid. And thirdly, investigate and where warranted, prosecute those potentially involved in these crimes, including those who served in the Israeli army during and profiteered from the genocide. This is how we begin to honor the memory of those killed. And if the Security Council is paralyzed, this assembly must act under Uniting for Peace with greater resolve than ever.

No state should join any initiative except initiatives led or mandated by the United Nations, and initiatives grounded in international law and the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination. The “Peace Council” completely fails on both counts. States committed to the rule of law should push for its immediate dismantling, not join it.

Lamis Deek

Director of Legal and Diplomatic Affairs at Pal Commission on War Crimes, Reparation and Return

STATEMENT:

I’d like to start by outlining just some of the illegal provisions. And when I say illegal provisions, I mean these are provisions which violate the UN Charter itself by the UN Security Council Resolution and should invalidate Resolution 2803. I think one of the questions that has come up is the concern as to whether the Uniting for Peace resolution is dead in light of this. To the contrary, I think this makes the Uniting for Peace resolution all the more urgent and all the more relevant because as I’ve just said, this Resolution 2803 violates the UN Charter itself. First and foremost, it violates all preemptive non-negotiable jus cogens obligations of all states– specifically the right to self-determination, and it makes the right to self-determination conditional on other illegal provisions, including demilitarization. Second, this ‘board of peace’ which is comprised largely of states that have directly participated in the genocide, both of which are inherently illegal under international law.

It also violates the UN Charter principals under which mandate states must protect self-determination which prohibits the acquisition of territory by force in recognizing the expanded perimeter, let alone the borders of Gaza as they were drawn by the siege. The ICJ advisory opinion ruled those to be illegal to the prohibition on apartheid, racial and foreign domination violated this resolution. The prohibition and restriction of aid growth also violate the UN Charter. The prohibition on collective punishment is implicated directly by this and the continuation of the siege is also a violation of the UN Charter.

What this essentially does, is lay the groundwork for bringing in the Uniting for Peace resolution. And the Uniting for Peace resolution isn’t activated just when the UN Security Council does nothing but when it fails to fulfil its primary responsibilities and adhere to the primary principles the majority of which are violated, or it fails to act in accordance with the Charter or in accordance with binding international law obligations, or to stop acts of aggression.

And this is exactly what Resolution 2803 intends to do. It intends to cement the siege, cement the acquisition of territory by force, make aid conditional of a people who are in dire need of escalated aid, not just regular aid. It also not just shelters but makes it an institutional entrenchment of Israeli impunity for war crimes, for the siege, for the reparations which they owe for reconstruction. It also gives impunity, which could be why many so states are keen on it: it gives impunity to third party complicit states and actually rewards them. So it’s an understatement to say that this is a criminal resolution.

I would say this is the result of a criminal and corrupt operation which must be taken down. From our end– we are not hopeless about the Uniting for Peace resolution though we are quite concerned about what we see happening because ultimately, like I’ve said before, we can always count on our adversaries’ arrogance and their stupidity to ensure that this will fail and we intend to hold everybody to count as it does continue to fail. This is yet again an entrenchment, not just of illegality, but an entrenchment of the genocide.

The genocide has not ended. The genocide continues both by the bombs as well as by the deprivation of aid as you’ve seen the horrifying scenes in Gaza for the failure to allow winterization projects to come in. There’s nothing about the West Bank, which is under horrific conditions, addressed by this resolution. And this is an intentional deflection, right? This whole concept of the two states self-determination and aid being conditioned on the cooperation with these illegal terms is an anathema. And so there’s still room for the Uniting for Peace to come in on that. Even now, even at this stage, we could proceed by proposing a Uniting for Peace resolution for the West Bank, which is urgently needed at this point. Lastly, I’d like to say the Israelis have already stated that they don’t intend to agree with the goalpost of this, the final goalpost, which is a two-state solution. Palestinian factions almost across the board, excluding one, have all already rightfully and lawfully rejected this criminal resolution. From our end, the work has not stopped. We will escalate. We remain hopeful.

What we need from the rest of society is to want to up the ante on this, to start demanding their governments do not participate in the criminal board of power, the BOP or the ISF and to demand their governments instead align with the Colombia-led proposal with other co-sponsors under the Uniting for Peace resolution. Mobilization is critical. The move for a protection force is, in our opinion, non-negotiable no matter who it comes from. When and how, will largely depend on the masses. Our team are full steam ahead.

Craig Mokhiber

Former United Nations (UN) human rights official and a specialist in international human rights law.

STATEMENT:

A resolution from Hell

On Monday, 17 November, the UN Security Council adopted a U.S. proposal to hand control of Gaza over to a U.S.-led colonial body called “The Board of Peace” while deploying a proxy occupation force, also U.S.-directed, called “The International Stabilization Force.” Both will answer, ultimately, to Donald Trump himself. And both will function in consultation with the Israeli regime.

Not since the UN partitioned Palestine in 1947 against the will of the indigenous people, setting the stage for 80 years of Nakba, has the UN acted in such a baldly colonial way, and trampled so recklessly on the rights of a people.

In what will long be remembered as a day of shame for the UN, while both Russia and China abstained, they did not use their vetoes, and not a single member of the Security Council had the courage, principle, or respect for international law to vote against what can only be seen as a U.S. colonial outrage, a ratification of genocide, and a flagrant abdication of UN Charter principles.

Our Rebuttal of 2803: The 20/point plan makes no reference to democracy, to the rule of law, or to the inalienable rights of Palestinians. The word Justice is not mentioned a single time. There is no provision for the preservation of the evidence of war crimes, or any mention of the International Criminal Court, and ongoing investigations. Nor is there any mention of the demand for reparations.

Such a resolution is unprecedented and extremely damaging to the UN. The Security Council has basically placed an occupied territory under what amounts to a colonial mandate based on bilateral agreements concluded in Washington and Jerusalem, excluding the participation of any Palestinian actor, be it Hamas, the Palestinian Authority or civil society. There can be no legitimacy in a peace process negotiated between only one party to a conflict and its ally.

Countries participating in the plan open themselves up to legal suits, given the numerous flaws to the plan and its overall illegitimacy.

The Security Council has given its stamp of approval to a mechanism which goes against the principles of international law (e.g., the obligation on Israel to protect civilians and provide humanitarian access), international humanitarian law (e.g., the absolute prohibition on using hunger as a method of warfare) and the right of peoples to self-determination.

The plan makes no guarantee of civilian safety, or of a measurable access to aid, nor an end to bombing. Since the “ceasefire”, daily violations by Israel have been documented and several hundred Gazans have been killed, thousands have been injured, and many more have died because of Israel’s failure to respect its obligations under humanitarian law: access to the basics for life: food, clean water, shelter, energy, and medical care.

Resolution 2308 also disregards the regulatory framework of the UN: it makes no mention of Resolution 2334 (colonization), or the decisions of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) concerning occupation, the risk of genocide or humanitarian aid; neither does it mention the fundamental peace framework enshrined in Resolutions 242 and 338.

International law is dismissed in this plan for Gaza. The United Nations is to play an exclusively humanitarian role (Point 8). This is part of the Trump Administration’s general disregard for international law, as has been seen in US military operations in Iran and along the coast of Venezuela.

“A regression to the ineffective and harmful policies of liberal peacebuilding, only this time without any commitment, however self-contradicting, to justice, self-determination, and international law.” – Leon Seidl

The acceptance of the Peace Plan was given under duress, in the hope of respite for a population barely surviving under extreme conditions. This cannot be equated with free consent to a plan imposed on the Palestinian people from the outside. A distinction is made in international law between accepting the end of hostilities and handing your country over to external tutelage. As this plan was put together outside of any UN framework, this alone invalidates it.

The so-called “Board of Peace”, with international legal personality, is to be responsible for governing Gaza until a program of reforms imposed on the Palestinian Authority is implemented. No completion date is defined, making imposed external governance indefinite.

There is a lot of ambiguity in the resolution regarding the powers and functions of the “Board of Peace”, leaving it open to multiple interpretations – none the least by the United States: the documents only supply examples of its powers and an open-ended list of the council’s tasks.

The “Board of Peace” is not a UN mission, nor is it under the authority of the Secretary-General; It is headed up by Trump, and other private individuals, such as Tony Blair, as well as several authoritarian heads of state, including Israel itself, meaning that the Security Council has delegated powers of government to an external private entity, funded by unclear sources of private finance, territory and exercising sovereign functions. Such an arrangement does not correspond to any category provided for in the United Nations Charter: it amounts to a privatization of international governance, in defiance of the right to self-determination.

“The resolution also authorizes the creation of an international stabilization force, which is not a UN force but an ad hoc coalition, operating ‘in close consultation’ with Israel and Egypt. With an exceptional mandate – demilitarization, destruction of infrastructure, border control – it would place a territory ravaged by two years of bombing and international crimes under a security regime dominated by the powers responsible for the hostilities. Neutrality, a cardinal principle of peace operations, disappears completely.” – A. Dorado, P. Zahnd

The plan is completely biased towards the Israeli party and western interests and basically enforces an old-fashioned colonial mandate in which Gaza would be under foreign security control, administered by an unelected council, and that a defenseless population would have no choice but to accept, while their freedom of movement would still be controlled by Israel.

The document does not clearly commit to the unity of Palestine. The occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem is absent. The proposals concerning statehood and peace for the long term are vague, referred to only as an undefined “political horizon”. Nor does the document deal with the increased settler violence and Israel’s continued approval of illegal settler colonies and its annexation of West Bank settlements.

The feasibility of even implementing Resolution 2308 is extremely questionable. The plan is more focused on the potential profits which can be gained from foreign investment (Point 10) in the occupied territory than on the rebuilding of Gaza and accompanying Palestine on its path to sovereignty. Point 9 states that attracting investment is as important as serving the people of Gaza.

Previous endeavors to use a free-market capitalism approach on war-torn countries have never borne the expected fruit; without agency, the Palestinian apolitical Committee will be seen by the public as a puppet regime without any legitimacy.

Most international stakeholders are in favor of a two-state solution; however, Israel’s current (and past) governments is opposed to this, and is firmly committed to the creation of Greater Israel, to include Palestine in its entirety, and parts of neighboring states such as Lebanon and Syria. Their actions in the past two years confirm this mind frame.

Israel generally disregards UN bodies and either ignores or challenges its decisions. There is no respect for the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice (ICJ). There is no compliance with International Criminal Court (ICC) decisions. Nothing in the Trump plans compels or obliges Israel to respect international law and international humanitarian law. The recent burning of UNRWA headquarters and the expulsion of 37 well-respected international humanitarian aid organizations speaks to this.

The mandate of the international stabilization force (ISF) is to “ensure the disarmament of the sector, including the destruction of military, terrorist, and offensive infrastructure and preventing its reconstruction, as well as the permanent removal of weapons from service by non-state armed groups”. This turns the ISF into an offensive force, not a peace-keeping force. If certain factions refuse to disarm, who then would be responsible for disarming them? Which country would accept to send in troops under such vague conditions?

There is a need for a clear mandate, a defined mission, for clear rules of engagement and withdrawal stages, and political approval from a legitimate Palestinian authority.

Concerning the deployment of an international peace-keeping force in Gaza, the timeline is vague and problematic. If this force is put on the ground before the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces, in a territory where a Palestinian police force is to operate, and where there might also be resistance fighters still in operation, it has the potential for disaster.

Should certain terms of the plan be “delayed or rejected” by freedom fighters (such as disarmament), it allows for continuing to proceed in “terror-free” areas which could create differences in government from one area to the next, and a lack of overall accountability. Volatile situations are likely to ensue.