Palestine urges UN action against genocide in Gaza, demands accountability

Palestine has renewed its call for international action to halt the genocide in Gaza and address the threat "posed by Israel to international peace and security."

It was made on Friday, in letters sent by Palestine's envoy to the UN, Riyad Mansour, to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, General Assembly President Dennis Francis and the President of the Security Council for August, Sierra Leone.

Mansour reiterated calls to the international community, particularly the Security Council and General Assembly, to take immediate action to hold Israel accountable for its crimes and achieve justice for the Palestinian people.

He wants to end the threat posed by Israel to international peace and security to save endangered lives and complete the prospects for a just resolution to the grave injustice.

Mansour said Israel's actions are "against the Palestinian people, especially in Gaza, violate all prohibitions outlined in the Genocide Convention, committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza and other occupied Palestinian territories, including East Jerusalem, on an unprecedented scale that shocks human conscience."

"For 10 months, the world has watched this horrific genocide and witnessed the most heinous atrocities, yet has failed to act to protect Palestinian civilians, neglecting the most serious commitments under the Charter and customary international law binding on all nations," he said.

'Systematic and deliberate'

Mansour noted that Israel targets Palestinian civilians with "all forms of lethal weapons, violating every rule of international law designed to protect civilians in armed conflict."

He said Israel’s targeting civilians is "systematic and deliberate” and pointed out that the destruction of schools, including the demolition of 190 UN Refugee Agency facilities, has left more than 600,000 children without access to education and the destruction of Gaza's 19 universities have deprived over 88,000 young people of higher education, "jeopardizing the future of an entire generation."

Mansour informed officials that the death toll in 10 months of the Israeli onslaught is extremely high, mostly women and children and Tel Aviv has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians.

"This horrific list of victims does not include 10,000 people estimated to be missing, most of whom are believed to be buried under rubble or in mass graves," he said.

He emphasised that the international community’s failure to hold Israel accountable for its blatant violations of resolutions and grave violations of international law, including humanitarian and human rights law, has only increased Israel’s impunity, leading to catastrophic consequences.