To save lives, Palestine recognition must come with action: States must stop Israel’s crimes and ensure Palestinian agency

Most countries recognise Palestinian statehood, yet Israel’s international law violations are accelerating, with near-total impunity, causing mass displacement, widespread death, and an escalating humanitarian crisis throughout the occupied Palestinian territory. For real impact and to avoid complicity, States must turn their expressions of solidarity into concrete, life-saving action, and any plans for a way forward must place Palestinians as the main architects of their own future.

Statehood recognition is an important, welcome step in the realisation of the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination. It cannot remain symbolic, or be treated as a reward. Importantly, it doesn’t absolve Member States of their legal and moral obligations to put an end to the Israeli occupation in the occupied Palestinian territory (Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem) – which the International Court of Justice has determined to be illegal and in violation of Palestinians’ right to self-determination – and to stop what the UN Commision of Inquiry has determined to be a genocide carried out by Israel in Gaza.

The escalating humanitarian crisis driven by these actions is widely known and documented. Just in the past two years, Israeli eviction orders, demolitions, blockages, arbitrary arrests and direct attacks on people, have triggered the largest forced displacement in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, since the start of the occupation in 1967.

The largest land theft in three decades was officially approved last year, and violence by settlers is at an all-time high.

In Gaza, Israeli authorities have been carrying out a deadly military operation that has killed or injured over 136,000 people, forced 2 million people to flee several times, and destroyed 90% of the buildings. Throughout Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, Israeli forces have attacked 1,700 health facilities. They have restricted free movement – through military checkpoints, gates, barriers, corridors and no-go zones – with devastating consequences on communities’ ability to access livelihoods, medical care, education and other vital services.

World leaders cannot claim ignorance. Even as 4 in 5 countries globally recognise the State of Palestine, the Israeli parliament recently approved a motion to completely annex the West Bank including East Jerusalem, where 3.3 million Palestinians live, and Israeli officials have reiterated their intention to pursue “complete sovereignty” over the West Bank, stating that “there is no Palestinian people and no Palestinian State” and that “the place belongs to [Israelis]”. Similar intentions have been openly declared for all of Gaza.

Such declarations are no longer fringe: they show what is driving the accelerated erasure of a people. Israel’s fragmentation and annexation of land internationally recognized as Palestinian is rendering the prospect of a viable Palestinian State less and less realistic.

Acting is not optional. The International Court of Justice clarified in July 2024 that all UN Member States are obligated to not recognize or support Israel’s unlawful occupation, including through trade and investments. Moreover, the UN Commission of Inquiry has determined that all States must “take all necessary steps to try to avoid or stop the commission of genocide”.

Just in the few weeks that have passed since several additional countries recognised the State of Palestine, hundreds of Palestinians have been killed and more than 1,500 have been injured by Israeli fire across the occupied Palestinian territory. The military takeover of Gaza City has accelerated in scope and brutality: deadly strikes on tents, housing units and public buildings have forced tens of thousands to flee once more, though most people have nowhere to go; several health care facilities in the north have had to shut down leaving hundreds of thousands with very limited access to medical care. In the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, settler attacks and military incursions and arrestshave intensified. Dozens of Palestinian structures have been demolished. The Israeli parliament’s National Security Committee has advanced discussions to restrict humanitarian access to prisons where over 9,500 Palestinians are held as well as a law to authorise the death penalty for detainees.

With each hour of delay, another family is shattered, another child starves, another home is reduced to dust, another piece of Palestinian life is erased.

To avoid the outcome of having a State of Palestine without Palestinians, and to prevent Israeli forces and settlers from taking additional punitive action against communities, States must use every available political, economic, and legal tool at their disposal for:

• An immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza, and for Palestinians to own and lead their own (re)construction plans and process, in line with their inalienable right to self-determination
• An end to Israel’s illegal occupation of the entire occupied Palestinian territory, ensuring the conditions needed for Palestinians to stay in their land
• Unrestricted UN-coordinated humanitarian access and protection, as enshrined in international humanitarian law, throughout the occupied Palestinian territory
• An end to trade with illegal settlements, including the provision of services and investments
• An immediate halt to all arms sales and transfers to Israel
• Accountability for crimes committed
• The immediate reopening of a corridor linking Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, for medical evacuations and other purposes

Signed by (alphabetical order):

1. ActionAid International
2. Al Awda Health and Community Association
3. American Friends Service Committee (AFSC)
4. Arab Educational Institute – Pax Christi Bethlehem / Palestine
5. Bystanders No More
6. Child Rights International Network (CRIN)
7. Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP)
8. CIDSE – International Family of Catholic Social Justice Organisations
9. Doctors of the World – Médecins du Monde International Network (MdM)
10. Emmaus International
11. Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect
12. Global Legal Action Network (GLAN)
13. HelpAge International
14. Insecurity Insight
15. KinderUSA
16. NGO Committee on Disarmament, Peace and Security
17. Norwegian Peoples Aid
18. Oxfam International
19. PARC – Agricultural Development Association
20. Pax Christi International
21. Palestinian Institute for Climate Strategy (PICS)
22. Sabeel-Kairos UK
23. The Middle East Children’s Alliance24. Terre des Hommes Italy
24. United Against Inhumanity

Over the past two years, among other atrocities, Israeli authorities have:

• Forced at least 40,000 Palestinians out of their homes in northern West Bank – all-time high since Israel occupation began in 1967 – due to Israeli-ordered demolitions, evictions, and increasing attacks by settlers and armed forces. Another 66,800 at least face a direct risk of forcible transfer, as about 663 km2 of West Bank land is vulnerable to settlement takeover and expansion.
• Approved the largest land theft in the West Bank in three decades in July 2024, as well as over 15,000 units and 22 new illegal settlements in 2025 alone, and established over 121 new outposts. Israeli authorities also gave final approval for the “E1” settlement project, which is effectively cutting off East Jerusalem from the occupied West Bank and further fragmenting the land.
• Bombed Gaza relentlessly, killing at least 66,000, injuring 170,000 and forcing close to 2 million people to flee repeatedly. Over 92% of housing units and 90% of school buildings are destroyed and only 1.5% of cropland is now usable as a result.
• Blocked the entry of vital goods into Gaza, including an 11-week complete siege that led to extreme starvation, with famine confirmed in the north, and severe shortages in health facilities.
• Attacked health care facilities close to 1,700 times across the occupied Palestinian territory.
• Imposed countless movement restrictions across the occupied Palestinian territory in the form of militarised corridors, checkpoints and no-go zones in Gaza (82% of the land is now inaccessible), and over 800 gates, checkpoints and barriers in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, with devastating consequences on people’s ability to access livelihoods, health care, education and other vital services.

Quotes

“Recognizing Palestine means little while bombs are still falling on our homes and our children are going to sleep hungry and afraid. What Palestinians need is not another statement, but an end to this war and the chance to live with safety and dignity, a chance to build a life for our children and not to just merely survive”.

– Bahaa Zaqout, Director at the Agriculture Development Association (PARC), in Gaza

“The recognition of the Palestinian state by so many countries is a very important step forward in acknowledging our right to have an independent state. We received this message as people in Gaza, at a time when hundreds of thousands are fleeing toward the central area of Mawasi—displaced from the south into an unsafe, inhumane zone. This is a critical moment that the people of Gaza are enduring. I hope the leaders around the world, as they meet, will do everything in their power to end this genocide, to stop the war, and to put an end to the suffocation and suffering. Children facing malnutrition are enduring daily attacks— airstrikes, the closure of crossings, and the denial of basic necessities. These children need protection. Action is urgently needed—now—to stop this war, to stop this genocide, and to protect the people of Gaza.”

– Amjad Shawa, Director of the Palestinian NGO Network, in Gaza

“For the residents of Gaza, this recognition represents a gateway, perhaps the only hope, to halt these daily acts of aggression against the city of Gaza and the entire Gaza Strip. We, residents of Gaza, believe that this recognition will be meaningless unless it leads to a complete ceasefire and a long lasting peace. As humanitarian workers and those monitoring the displaced population, we, along with them, are waiting for a complete ceasefire and the restoration of normal life in Gaza—the rebuilding of infrastructure, the reopening of schools, universities, hospitals, and so on. These are the hopes we associate with this recognition process, and this recognition will be hollow if the hostilities, war, and military operations continue to escalate from one area to another.”

– NGO aid worker, in Gaza

“There’s a genocide and an apartheid happening and countries are busy prioritizing recognizing Palestine? It’s good that they recognize it, but it’s the fulfilment of a duty and of a promise made decades ago. In the meantime, the world continues to allow the killings and the demolitions, without any significant consequences.”

– Basel Adra, community member of Masafer Yatta and film director, in the West Bank

“The [British] Government’s recognition of Palestine as a state must be followed by concrete action. Israeli forces are obliterating Gaza City, while in the West Bank, Israel advances annexation and expulsions. Palestinians, and the British public, expect comprehensive sanctions, no military collaboration, and an end to British participation in this ongoing genocide.”

– Dr Sara Husseini, Director of the British Palestinian Committee