In advance of the public hearings in the Advisory Opinion on the Obligations of Israel in relation to the Presence and Activities of the United Nations, Other International Organizations and Third States in and in relation to the Occupied Palestinian Territory beginning on 28 April 2025, Al-Haq has sent letters to States who will be participating in oral interventions to draw attention to recent developments that should both inform participation and feature in oral arguments.

While the request for an Advisory Opinion on Israel’s obligations as an Occupying Power and member of the United Nations (UN) in relation to the presence and activities of the UN, including its agencies and bodies, and other international organizations and third States, in and in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) largely stemmed from Israel’s physical, political, and legislative attacks against the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA, ‘the Agency’), it also covers Israel’s duties towards other international and Palestinian, state and non-state, organisations acting for the benefit of the Palestinian population.

The July 2024 Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) clearly affirmed that Israel’s presence in the occupied Palestinian territory is unlawful, constituting among other violations, a denial of the Palestinian right to self-determination. In the ongoing South Africa proceedings under the Genocide Convention, the ICJ has indicated that Israel’s conduct in Gaza, and fundamentally Israel’s denial to Palestinians of access to the basic humanitarian supplies necessary for their survival, constitutes a plausible breach of the Convention. In clear disregard for the several Provisional Measures Orders issued by the ICJ, Israel has escalated the severity of its total siege on Gaza, manufacturing a famine with the intent to destroy the Palestinian population of Gaza.

The banning of UNRWA, and the impending restrictions on other humanitarian organisations, accompanied by the incessant and inherently unlawful bombing and forcible displacement of Palestinian civilians by the Israeli occupation forces, constitutes a central element of Israel’s ongoing genocide.

The question referred to the ICJ concerns each of Israel’s obligations as an unlawful Occupying Power since 1967, and as a UN member state since 1949. Central to the expansion and entrenchment of Israel’s settler colonial apartheid regime in Palestine is the denial of the right of return of Palestinian refugees. The UN’s primary agency for protecting and supporting Palestinian refugees has, in blatant contravention of the purposes and principles of the UN as an organisation, been denied by the State of Israel its capacity to implement its mandate.

Israel’s wholesale and targeted attack on the humanitarian space

With the two legislative instruments targeting UNRWA, namely Bill for the Cessation of UNRWA Activities, 5784–2024 and Bill for the Cessation of UNRWA Activities in the Territory of the State of Israel, 5784–2024 preventing the Agency from having any contact with Israeli officials and banning it from carrying out any activity on the territory of Israel, now in full effect, the role of other UN agencies and humanitarian organisations has never been more central to the survival of Palestinians across the OPT, and in Gaza especially. Unsurprisingly, however, Israel’s intent to strip Palestinians of all means of survival and hopes for self-determination remains unwavering. In the nearly two months since our previous communication to you, the humanitarian situation in Palestine has deteriorated beyond belief.  The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has identified the “shrinking humanitarian space” as one of the drivers of the humanitarian crisis, which is considered to be the worst the Gaza Strip has faced since Israel launched its genocidal campaign in October 2023.

Just days prior to Israel’s implementation of a total blockade on Gaza on 2 March 2025, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), the Israeli army unit responsible for administering the military occupation, presented a plan for establishing “humanitarian hubs” in Gaza. Under the plan, COGAT will dictate the distribution of urgently needed humanitarian aid through “tightly managed logistics hubs” to “vetted Palestinians” only, in areas under full control of the Israeli Occupying Forces (IOF) which will expand over time – thereby representing a clear advancement in Israel’s plan to annex the Palestinian territory. Only the Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) crossing is to be permitted for the entry of humanitarian aid, and all other crossings in and out of Gaza will remain permanently closed. Since aid would only be allowed through an Israeli crossing, and not through Rafah, it would make operating in Gaza all but impossible for UNRWA, which can no longer rotate international staff in and out of Gaza or have any contact with Israeli officials to coordinate its activities and is already struggling to provide its services to the 2.1 million Palestinians in Gaza. Under the plan, nongovernmental organisations allowed to operate in Gaza would also have to be registered in Israel.

Shortly after this plan was presented to the UN and other aid organisations, on 9 March 2025, Israel enacted new visa and registration rules as additional grounds upon which to limit the activities of humanitarian actors. The far-reaching guidelines are designed to provide Israeli officials with a broad discretion to reject the registration of nongovernmental organizations providing crucial assistance to Palestinians. For instance, the new criterion will prevent the operations of humanitarian organisations whose staff have supported or endorsed operations considered hostile to Israel, including support for boycotts or legal proceedings against Israeli citizens in international courts for acts carried out while serving in the military or any security agency, or which have questioned Israel’s definition as a Jewish and democratic State. 

Beyond politicising humanitarian work, which should be carried out in accordance with the principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence, the new rules expose local and international staff to greater threat of attack due to the extensive disclosure requirements necessary for registration with the unlawful Occupying Power. Humanitarian organisations are required to submit personal identification data, including names, contact details, and national ID numbers of Palestinian employees, to Israeli authorities. In light of Israel’s documented history of targeting aid workers, with at least 417 killed in Gaza alone during the past 18 months of genocide, this is extremely concerning and will surely lead to the increased targeting of these individuals and their families, who are already at risk.  

Responsibility of the UN

Israel’s duties as an Occupying Power and as a member of the UN have been clearly outlined in the legal brief sent to you on 18 January 2025. However, considering Israel’s manifestly unlawful conduct and its complete contempt for the multilateral, rules-based order on which the UN system relies, it is also important to highlight the duties of the UN in this situation.

In 2018, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 2417 recognising the link between armed conflict, violence, food insecurity and the threat of famine. Resolution 2417 strongly condemned international humanitarian law violations such as the use of starvation of as a method of warfare, the forced displacement of civilians, the unlawful denial of humanitarian access, and the deprivation of objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population. Israel is committing each of these violations on a daily basis. Palestinians displaced from over 70 percent of Gaza’s territory. The starving population, 91 percent of which are facing crisis levels of acute food insecurity, remains subject to a complete blockade on all humanitarian aid that has been in place for almost two months. To compound the effects of the already lethal siege (since over 80 percent of households primarily rely on humanitarian supplies) Israeli authorities continue to deny planned coordinated missions by UN agencies and other aid organisations.

Critically, Resolution 2417 urged “those with influence over parties to armed conflict to remind the latter of their obligation to comply with international humanitarian law” and recalled that the Security Council “has adopted and can consider to adopt sanction measures, where appropriate and in line with existing practice, that can be applied to individuals or entities obstructing the delivery of humanitarian assistance, or access to, or distribution of, humanitarian assistance”. Despite the Security Council reaffirming its commitment to Resolution 2417 in 2023, it has failed to take necessary, concrete action to stop Israel’s genocide in Gaza or respond to its settler-colonial, apartheid policies and steps to annex what remains of Palestine.

It is imperative, when defending the UN, and supporting UNRWA, that sight is not lost of the very purposes and obligations which the UN, as a matter of international law, justice, and obligation, owes to those for whom UNRWA has been a central point of support over long decades. The right of return of Palestinian refugees must be central to the present legal proceedings and affirmed in all legal analyses and submissions. Supporting the principle that UN agencies cannot be dismantled or attacked by UN member states is in itself of huge consequence, intertwined as it is with the fundamental individual and collective human rights of Palestinians.

International humanitarian law applicable to situations of occupation, including unlawful occupation, as confirmed by the ICJ’s 2024 Advisory Opinion, requires as a basic principle that the Occupying Power ensures the provision of essential goods to the protected population, and that where the occupying power does not make such provision, it is obliged the facilitate the provision of such essentials by other actors. In its present conduct, Israel is not only in fundamental breach of international humanitarian and human rights law, but is manufacturing and inflicting famine on a defenceless civilian population for the purpose of genocide. Israel’s attack on the Palestinian population is simultaneously an attack on the UN.

There must be consequences arising from Israel’s ongoing, persistent, and egregious violation of the basic principles contained in the UN Charter, including Israel’s repeated physical violence targeting UN and humanitarian objects and personnel. It is imperative that such consequences, include the immediate suspension of Israel from the UN General Assembly, as well as all further UN agencies, until such time as Israel abides by its legal obligations, as previously identified and confirmed by the ICJ.

Palestinians no longer have the luxury of time. While Israel’s genocidal campaign draws near to completion and its settlement expansion and violence in the West Bank rapidly escalates, the public’s faith in the international community, its values, and the force of international law hangs in the balance. To regain this trust and protect the existence of Palestinians as a group, States must use the upcoming oral proceedings as an opportunity to request the Court to:

1. Demand a full and immediate cessation of hostilities in Gaza and withdrawal of Israeli forces;
2. Demand the UN Security Council to fulfil its mandate and uphold Resolution 2417. This includes: implementing a three-way arms embargo on Israel; mandating the free and unimpeded access of UNRWA, UN agencies generally and other organisations into Gaza, including criminal investigators;
3. Request the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the OPT, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, to specifically investigate Israel’s settler colonial apartheid regime since 1948 and its continuing genocidal acts intended to destroy the Palestinian people;
4. Examine the attacks on UNRWA as part of the targeting, fragmentation and destruction of Palestinian refugees and the Palestinian group, denying the right of return and self-determination, and continued appropriation of Palestinian refugee properties, as acts of apartheid, persecution and genocide.
5. Address the dangerous temporal limitation of the current proceedings by requesting an additional dossier of documents between 1948-1967 to prevent the erasure of Palestinian rights and experience and ensure the full role, function, and mandate of UNRWA is considered, along with the crucially relevant, formative period of the historical development of the Zionist settler-colonial project, which is rapidly expanding in terms of both its imperialist ambitions and forms of violence against Palestine and its refugee population.
6. Request that the ICJ identify the legal consequences for the UN with respect its obligations to counter a member state which is acting, including through the manufacture of genocidal famine, in persistent violation of the principles definitive of the UN Charter. Such consequences must at a minimum include the immediate expulsion of Israel from the UN General Assembly under Article 6 of the UN Charter.