Gaza, 7 May 2025 – One year ago today, the Israeli military launched a ground invasion of Rafah and seized control of the Rafah border crossing—an act that many world leaders had then considered as a “red line”.^[1] Yet those words have proven empty: Israel has since crossed every “red line” drawn by the international community, including by unilaterally breaking the ceasefire agreement on 18 March 2025 and deliberately blocking humanitarian aid from entering Gaza for more than two months. Still, no accountability followed, and no meaningful consequences were applied to Israel, including sanctions or halts to weapons supply. 

Earlier this week, amid a total lack of accountability and political cover provided by complicit allies, the Israeli security cabinet unanimously approved a plan to further escalate military operations in Gaza. The plan’s stated objective is the permanent occupation of the territory, the forcible transfer of the Palestinian population to southern Gaza, and their potential deportation outside of Palestine—measures that lay the groundwork for the de facto annexation of Gaza by Israel. These actions, if carried out, would constitute serious violations of international law, including the crime against humanity of deportation or forcible transfer and a breach of the prohibition on the acquisition of territory by force. 

The unanimous vote by the entire membership of Israel's security cabinet blatantly revealed the underlying objective driving the ongoing genocide in Gaza, of which the forcible displacement or transfer of Palestinians and the annexation of the territory represent its final stage: a long-term settler-colonial endeavor aimed at the erasure of the Palestinian people and forcible removal from their land.

The Israeli security cabinet also approved a scheme for the distribution of humanitarian aid in Gaza that flagrantly violates humanitarian principles. Since 2 March 2025, Israel has been knowingly blocking the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza, denying Palestinians the essentials required for their physical survival. Rather than facilitating humanitarian relief, the approved scheme weaponizes aid as a tool of genocide, subjugation, and demographic engineering, serving the aims of Israel’s settler-colonial genocidal agenda. Al Mezan welcomes the firm positions taken by the United Nations Secretary-General, the Humanitarian Country Team in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and the Palestinian NGOs Network (PNGO), which have all unequivocally rejected Israel’s plan.

Al Mezan warns that Israel is now poised to enter the final stage of genocide in Gaza, fuelled by a persistent climate of impunity. For years, Al Mezan has stressed that impunity breeds lawlessness. Decades of unchecked Israeli violations against the Palestinian people have laid the groundwork for the present genocide. Each failure to uphold international law has reinforced Israel’s confidence that it can act without any consequences.

Over the past year and a half in particular, Israel has repeatedly demonstrated its disdain for the international legal order by deliberately ignoring resolutions from the UN Security Council, the General Assembly, and the Human Rights Council, as well as the legally binding provisional measures issued by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the case of South Africa v. Israel. The Israeli parliament has passed two laws intended to dismantle UNRWA, both of which were later upheld by the Israeli Supreme Court. This sustained defiance of international institutions, including the United Nations (UN), and international law underscores Israel’s belief that it remains above accountability, no matter the scale of its violations.

Israel’s belief that it can act with impunity is directly attributable to and continuously fueled by the international community’s persistent failure to adopt meaningful accountability efforts. This failure is most evident among Western states, first and foremost the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and the European Union and its member states, which have continued to provide political, military, and diplomatic cover to Israel despite overwhelming evidence of grave breaches of international law.

This failure demonstrates a systemic reluctance to ensure respect for international law through concrete and legitimate measures such as sanctions and arms embargoes when it comes to Israel. Despite clear legal obligations—including those reaffirmed by the ICJ in the Advisory Opinion of 19 July 2024—states have failed to meet their duties. Al Mezan additionally notes that Israel’s declared intention to permanently “reoccupy” Gaza stands in clear rejection of the ICJ’s 2024 Advisory Opinion, which found that Israel’s continued presence in the occupied Palestinian territory is “unlawful” and should be brought to an end “as rapidly as possible”.

Issam Younis, Al Mezan’s General Director, stated: “Israel must be compelled to lift its illegal siege, closure, and blockade of Gaza and allow humanitarian organizations unrestricted access to carry out their mandates, in line with humanitarian principles. The cost of inaction is measured in Palestinian lives—families erased, communities destroyed, children starving, and an entire people facing erasure. The world must act—not out of legal obligation, but because it is the only moral choice left.”

What is urgently needed now are not more expressions of concern, but concrete actions: targeted sanctions on Israeli officials and institutions responsible for grave violations of international law; the revision and suspension of diplomatic and economic relations with Israel, including EU-Israel Association Agreement; and a comprehensive two-way arms embargo to stop supplying Israel with the weapons used to kill and maim Palestinians. The implementation of International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrants must follow without delay, excuse, or exception.

It is a shameful display of complicity that European and other world leaders continue to visit Israel, shaking hands with a prime minister wanted by the ICC for war crimes and crimes against humanity—while, just a few kilometers away, Palestinian families are being starved, bombed, and forcibly displaced in what is the first live-streamed genocide in modern history. The international community has the tools to stop this—it is simply choosing not to use them.