"The inhumanity of the situation in Gaza is unconscionable," the Wednesday joint statement reads. "As humanitarian leaders, we have borne direct witness to the horrifying deaths and suffering of the people of Gaza. Our warnings have gone unheeded and thousands more lives are still at stake."
Noting the Israeli military's ground invasion of Gaza City this week, which requires the forced displacement of approximately a million people in the city with nowhere to safely go, the group warns that "we are on the precipice of an even deadlier period in Gaza’s story if action is not taken. Gaza has been deliberately made uninhabitable."
Despite months and months of repeated calls to intervene, Israel's allies—including the United States and others—have refused to withdraw their support for Israel's military offensive and a humanitarian blockade that has resulted in mass starvation. The US government, Israel's most powerful ally and chief supplier of weapons, has continued to send arms and the Trump administration defends the policies of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right ministers on the world stage.
In their declaration, the groups said the international community must act forcefully now or be forever remembered in history as complicit.
"The UN enshrined international law as the cornerstone of global peace and security," the statement reads. "If Member States continue to treat these legal obligations as optional, they are not only complicit but are setting a dangerous precedent for the future. History will undoubtedly judge this moment as a test of humanity. And we are failing."
On Tuesday, in response to the UN commission report, others made similar arguments.
“The Commission of Inquiry joins a growing number of international human rights bodies and experts in concluding that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza," said Agnès Callamard, secretary general of Amnesty International, which was not among the signers of Wednesday's letter but has echoed its message time and again.
“There is no more time for excuses: as the evidence of Israel’s genocide continues to mount the international community cannot claim they didn’t know. This report must compel states to take immediate action and fulfill their legal and moral obligation to halt Israel’s genocide. The international community, especially those states with influence on Israel, must exert all possible diplomatic, economic, and political pressure to ensure an immediate and lasting ceasefire and unhindered humanitarian access to Gaza.
The statement in full, along with the signatories, follows:
As world leaders convene next week at the United Nations, we are calling on all member states to act in accordance with the mandate the UN was charged with 80 years ago.
What we are witnessing in Gaza is not only an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe, but what the UN Commission of Inquiry has now concluded is a genocide.
With this finding, the Commission joins a growing number of human rights organisations and leaders globally, and within Israel.
The inhumanity of the situation in Gaza is unconscionable. As humanitarian leaders, we have borne direct witness to the horrifying deaths and suffering of the people of Gaza. Our warnings have gone unheeded and thousands more lives are still at stake.
Now, as the Israeli government has ordered the mass displacement of Gaza City – home to nearly one million people – we are on the precipice of an even deadlier period in Gaza’s story if action is not taken. Gaza has been deliberately made uninhabitable.
About 65,000 Palestinians have now been killed, including more than 20,000 children. Thousands more are missing, buried under the rubble that has replaced Gaza’s once lively streets.
Nine out of 10 people in Gaza’s 2.1 million population have been forcibly displaced - most of them multiple times - into increasingly shrinking pockets of land that cannot sustain human life.
More than half a million people are starving. Famine has been declared and is spreading. The cumulative impact of hunger and physical deprivation means people are dying every day.
Throughout Gaza, entire cities have been razed to the ground, along with their life-sustaining public infrastructure, such as hospitals and water treatment plants. Agricultural land has been systemically destroyed.
If the facts and numbers aren’t enough, we have harrowing story upon harrowing story.
Since the Israeli military tightened its siege six months ago, blocking food, fuel, and medicine, we witnessed children and families waste away from starvation as famine took hold. Our colleagues too have been impacted.
Many of us have been into Gaza. We have met countless Palestinians who have lost limbs as a result of Israel’s bombardment. We have personally met children so traumatized by daily airstrikes that they cannot sleep. Some cannot speak. Others have told us they want to die to join their parents in heaven.
We have met families who eat animal food to survive and boil leaves as a meal for their children.
Yet world leaders fail to act. Facts are ignored. Testimony is cast aside. And more people are killed as a direct consequence.
Our organisations, together with Palestinian civil society groups, the UN, and Israeli human rights organisations, can only do so much. We have tirelessly tried to defend the rights of the people of Gaza and sustain humanitarian assistance, but we are being obstructed every step of the way.
We have been denied access, and the militarization of the aid system has proved deadly. Thousands of people have been shot at while trying to reach the handful of sites where food is distributed under armed guard.
Governments must act to prevent the evisceration of life in the Gaza Strip, and to end the violence and occupation. All parties must disavow violence against civilians, adhere to international humanitarian law and pursue peace.
States must use every available political, economic, and legal tool at their disposal to intervene. Rhetoric and half measures are not enough. This moment demands decisive action.
The UN enshrined international law as the cornerstone of global peace and security. If Member States continue to treat these legal obligations as optional, they are not only complicit but are setting a dangerous precedent for the future. History will undoubtedly judge this moment as a test of humanity. And we are failing. Failing the people of Gaza, failing the hostages, and failing our own collective moral imperative."
CEO SIGN OFF (alphabetical)
- Arthur Larok, Secretary General of ActionAid International
- Othman Moqbel, Chief Executive Officer, Action For Humanity
- Joyce Ajlouny, General Secretary of American Friends Service Committee
- Sean Carroll, President and CEO of Anera
- Reintje Van Haeringen, Executive Director CARE International
- Jonas Nøddekær, Secretary General of DanChurchAid
- Charlotte Slente, Secretary General of the Danish Refugee Council
- Manuel Patrouillard, Managing Director, Humanity & Inclusion - Handicap International
- Jamie Munn, Executive Director, International Council of Voluntary Agencies (ICVA)
- Waseem Ahmad, CEO, Islamic Relief Worldwide
- Joseph Belliveau, Executive Director of MedGlobal
- Joel Weiler, Executive Director of Médecins du Monde France
- Nicolás Dotta, Executive Director of Médecins du Monde Spain
- Christopher Lockyear, Secretary General of Médecins Sans Frontières International
- Kenneth Kim, Executive Director, Mennonite Central Committee Canada
- Ann Graber Hershberger, Executive Director, Mennonite Central Committee US
- Jan Egeland, Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council
- Amitabh Behar, Oxfam International Executive Director
- Simon Panek, CEO, People in Need
- Inger Ashing, CEO of Save the Children International
- Donatella Vergara, President of Terre des Hommes Italy
- Rob Williams, CEO of War Child Alliance
