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STATEMENT OF THE BUREAU
OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY’S
COMMITTEE ON THE EXERCISE OF THE
INALIENABLE RIGHTS OF THE
PALESTINIAN PEOPLE
600 Days of
Israeli War on Gaza: UN Committee
Urges Immediate, Unhindered
Humanitarian Access
New York, 30 May
2025 - As the Israeli
military action on Gaza enters its
600th day, the Bureau of the UN
Committee on the Exercise of the
Inalienable Rights expresses grave
concern over the escalating
casualties, worsening humanitarian
emergency, catastrophic devastation
and destruction and continued
obstruction of life-saving
assistance to the Palestinian
people.
Described by UN
Secretary-General António Guterres
as “the
cruelest phase” of the
conflict, the situation has left
Palestinian civilians enduring
unbearable suffering and widespread
and engineered deprivation and mass
displacement. The UN Humanitarian
Chief Tom Fletcher echoed this dire
assessment in his Security
Council briefing of 13 May
and emphasized: “When you face
starvation, you don’t need air drops
and floating piers, you need roads
open, convoys moving, and a
ceasefire that lasts.” The Committee
Bureau strongly shares these
sentiments in light of the worsening
of unprecedented and grave
humanitarian conditions.
The Bureau joins the
United Nations and countless
countries firmly opposing the Gaza
Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). This
initiative is an attempt to
circumvent the UN and its agencies
on the ground, foremost UNRWA,
that have long delivered
humanitarian aid and basic services
in assistance to the Palestinian
people in accordance with
international law, including
humanitarian law, relevant UN
resolutions and the humanitarian
principles of independence,
neutrality, impartiality and
independence. The GHF fails the test
of the humanitarian principles,
employing, inter alia, a food and
essentials rationing system described
by OCHA as “engineered
scarcity” and “a policy of
deprivation by design” that must be
firmly rejected.
The destruction of
Gaza’s essential infrastructure,
including hospitals, bakeries, and
water systems, alongside the
destruction of over 90% of housing
and the mass displacement and forced
encampment of civilians, represents
not only a humanitarian crisis but a
profound erosion of the human
dignity of the Palestinian people.
The International
Court of Justice’s
provisional measures in the case of
South Africa v. Israel under the
Genocide Convention remain unheeded,
compounding the breaches of
international law by Israel, the
occupying Power.
Humanitarian
organizations, including the UN and
its partners, are prepared and
capable of delivering assistance
effectively to the Palestinian
people in Gaza to alleviate this
humanitarian catastrophe. What
stands in the way is not capacity,
but political obstruction and
systematic violations of obligations
under international law, including
humanitarian and human rights law.
The somber
milestone must be a moment of
reckoning and moral clarity.
The international community must act
decisively to uphold the rights of a
population facing starvation, mass
displacement, and death, as the
world watches on. While the June
2025 International Conference on the
implementation of the UN resolutions
pertaining to the question of
Palestine and the two-State solution
is a vital step forward towards
ending the illegal occupation, a
just and peaceful resolution to the
historic injustice, the immediate
humanitarian needs of the
Palestinian people in Gaza and in
the rest of the Occupied Palestinian
Territory, including East Jerusalem,
under constant Israeli assault,
cannot wait.
The Bureau calls on all
Member States to take urgent,
meaningful action to bring an end to
the Israeli siege and to ensure
immediate, unimpeded and full
humanitarian access to save the
endangered lives of 2 million
Palestinian children, women and men,
halt their forced displacement and
end this unbearable human suffering.
Urgent international efforts are
also required to bring a halt to the
violence and bloodshed with an
immediate and permanent ceasefire in
accordance with Security
Council resolution 2735 (2024)
and all other relevant resolutions,
and ensure accountability for all
violations of international law,
including all war crimes and crimes
against humanity, perpetrated in
this horrific conflict.
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