Entering a Third Year of Genocide in Gaza: PCHR, Al-Haq, and Al Mezan Condemn International Inaction in the Face of the Ongoing Destruction and Dispossession of Palestinians 

Gaza/Ramallah, 7 October 2025 – Today marks two years since the start of one of the most shameful and inhumane atrocities in modern history: the ongoing, live-streamed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. For more than 730 days, residents of the besieged Palestinian territory have been subjected to war crimes, crimes against humanity and acts of genocide. These mass atrocities have caused  immeasurable suffering and are decimating Palestinian life, culture, and society. Israel has leveled the five governorates of Gaza, creating extremely dangerous living conditions everywhere. Starved and exhausted Palestinians are being relentlessly bombarded and buried under the rubble. Gaza has become a graveyard. 

Over the past two years, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza, more than 66,000 Palestinians have been killed, including 20,000 children, and around 169,000 have been injured in direct bombardment and shootings of Palestinians, the overwhelming majority of whom are civilians. These figures exclude the tens of thousands of Palestinians still missing under the rubble and all those who have died due to famine or insufficient medical attention caused by Israel’s total siege on Gaza and ongoing refusal to allow the entry of humanitarian aid. Almost the entire Gaza Strip has been destroyed, flattened through systematic demolitions and intense bombardment carried out by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF), with cities and towns such as Rafah, Beit Lahia, Beit Hanoun, Jabalya, and Khan Younis virtually wiped off the map.

Thousands of Palestinians have been forcibly disappeared, their fate and whereabouts  unknown, while thousands more are arbitrarily detained and held in cruel, inhumane and degrading conditions. In Israel’s notorious detention centres, Palestinians are routinely subjected to torture, causing the deaths of dozens of prisoners. Mass forced displacement, a man-made famine, and the deprivation of the basic essentials for life–compounded by the destruction of hospitals, universities, schools, and critical civilian infrastructure–have subjected the population to unbearable conditions unfit for human survival. The devastating physical and psychological consequences caused by such unimaginably cruel conditions will last for generations. From journalists to medical workers, from children to persons with disabilities, not a single Palestinian has been spared from the horrors of this genocide.

An increasing number of reports, most recently by the UN Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel, as well as the International Association of Genocide Scholars, clearly state and reaffirm what our organisations have been stating since October 2023: that Israel is committing a genocide. Israel is intentionally killing Palestinians, causing serious bodily or mental harm, imposing conditions intended to prevent births, and creating conditions of life calculated to destroy Palestinians in Gaza, acts that constitute genocide. Despite the overwhelming evidence of criminality, the international community has failed to take meaningful action in line with its moral and legal obligations under the Genocide Convention. Although the International Court of Justice (ICJ),  established a plausible risk of genocide in Gaza and issued three Provisional Measures Orders in 2024, States have failed to implement concrete measures to stop this horrific genocide being perpetrated against the Palestinian people and pressure Israel into complying with ICJ’s legally binding orders. 

Palestinians are being forced into increasingly limited and overcrowded areas. As a direct result of Israel’s policy of mass forcible transfer as a tool of genocide and illegal annexation, over two million Palestinians are now crammed into the few remaining so-called “humanitarian zones”, which Israel continues to attack. On 9 September 2025, Israeli authorities ordered around one million Palestinians in Gaza City, many of whom were already forcibly displaced from the Northern Governorate, to relocate to the uninhabitable southern area of Al-Mawasi, which constitutes less than 4% of Gaza. Israel threatened Palestinians in Gaza City to leave, stating that anyone who remained in Gaza City or the Northern Governorate would be considered a “terrorist” or “terror supporter.” In effect, this grants the IOF the green light to target and kill thousands more Palestinian civilians who do not or cannot comply with Israel’s order. Those who leave under the threat of death –– including the elderly, persons with disabilities, pregnant women, women with babies, toddlers and children –– travel under extreme risk as Israel continues to bombard the so-called “humanitarian zones” in which Palestinians are forcibly displaced–proving, again and again, that nowhere is safe in Gaza.

Israel’s forced displacement of Palestinians into concentrated areas to the south of Gaza in inhumane conditions unfit for human survival, pending plans for their mass expulsion from Gaza, are genocidal acts calculated to bring about the destruction of the Palestinian group. Continued international inaction risks paving the way for a new, permanent wave of mass forcible transfer of Palestinians from Gaza.

For over 77 years, Israel has dispossessed, displaced, and fragmented the Palestinian people, denying them their inalienable rights, including the right of return and the right to self-determination. Despite mounting evidence of atrocity crimes and a live-streamed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, the international community, particularly Western governments, remain complicit. They continue to allow arms transfers to Israel. At the same time States parties to the Rome Statute  are turning a blind eye to the U.S. sanctions affecting Prosecutors and Judges at the International Criminal Court, the UN Special Rapporteur on Occupied Palestinian Territory Francesca Albanese and our organisations, for seeking justice and accountability for Palestinian victims. Instead of taking concrete action, the international community is entertaining the U.S. President Donald Trump’s controversial “20-Point Peace Plan”, which is designed to exploit and profit from the destruction in Gaza, and breaches peremptory norms of international law. The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), Al-Haq and Al Mezan stress that Israel’s genocide iss ongoing: at least 104 Palestinians have been killed in the past four days, and the large-scale systematic demolition of residential neighbourhoods persists. 

PCHR, Al-Haq and Al Mezan reiterate their urgent call on Third States to take immediate and concrete measures to end Israel’s ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip. At a minimum, measures must include: 

·       Palestinian right to self-determination and return;

·       The immediate imposition of a full arms embargo;

·       The full implementation of the recommendations of the International Court of Justice 2024 Palestine Advisory Opinion;

·       Comprehensive diplomatic, economic, and political sanctions against Israel, including the end of any economic aid and cooperation agreements that sustain and contribute to the ongoing genocide and Israel’s unlawful occupation and apartheid regime. 

·       Support for accountability mechanisms and investigations on all those who ordered, carried out, or contributed to the genocide, including through the exercise of universal jurisdiction before national courts, as well as proceedings before the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice.