Remarks by Ajith Sunghay, head of the UN Human Rights Office in the occupied Palestinian territory
Good afternoon and thank you for being here today.
Today I’m presenting this report which covers 19 months of large-scale violations of international law including atrocity crimes, from October 2023 to the end of May 2025.
One year later, despite the ceasefire concluded in October 2025, the lasting consequences of the patterns we documented are apparent.
The ceasefire diminished the immense scale of violence up to that point, and opened some modest humanitarian space. But killings and the destruction of infrastructure have continued on an almost daily basis, and the overall humanitarian situation remains dire. All while Hamas continues its own violations, including against the people of Gaza.
In the West Bank, the rate of forcible displacement of Palestinians is unseen in decades and Israeli settlement expansion is unprecedented. Israeli military and police forces and settlers are killing more and more Palestinians with impunity, often together.
The chronicle of violence and injustice continues, and will impact Palestinians for generations to come.
The report points to war crimes and possible crimes against humanity by Israeli and Palestinian duty bearers.
On and after 7 October 2023, Palestinian armed groups committed war crimes and possible crimes against humanity when they horrifically attacked civilians in Israel, killed at least 1,124, took and kept hostages, and fired thousands of unguided missiles into Israel for over a year. Released hostages have provided credible accounts of torture and ill-treatment, including sexual violence. Thankfully, no more hostages remain in Gaza today.
On and after 7 October 2023, Israel unleashed devastating violence and dispossession in Gaza and the West Bank, committing war crimes and possible crimes against humanity. The report finds that the totality of Israeli conduct in Gaza raises serious concern about Israel’s compliance with its obligation to prevent acts within the scope of the Genocide Convention.
The fact remains that Palestinians have no means to ensure their survival or to protect their loved ones, with hundreds killed since the announcement of a ceasefire.
The Israeli military has killed 72,769 Palestinians since 7 October 2023 in Gaza: in their homes, in IDP shelters, in hospitals, in schools, in places of worship, on the streets, while queuing for aid, while trying to fish in the sea.
During the reporting period, the Israeli blockade on Gaza resulted in starvation and famine that was foretold and later confirmed. Hundreds starved to death, including children. Any use of starvation as a method of war against civilians is a war crime, and it may amount to a crime against humanity and even genocide in certain conditions.
Displaced Palestinians have scant prospects of return, raising concerns about ethnic cleansing and forcible transfer. In Gaza, the neighbourhoods they fled are gone as Israeli forces continue to unlawfully demolish buildings across Gaza— homes still laden with thousands of unretrieved Palestinian bodies.
In the West Bank, Israeli forces and settlers have killed 1,096 Palestinians since 7 October 2023, one in five of them children. Many incidents raise concerns about unlawful killings and extrajudicial executions.
Settler attacks are routinely carried out with the support, acquiescence, or participation of Israeli security forces. The Israeli government has intensified the militarisation of the settler movement, shielded them from accountability, and now actively benefits from settler violence as a catalyst for its stated annexation agenda.
The dispossession in the West Bank is also systematic and relentless, matched in intensity with the record rate of settlement expansion. Since this government took office, settlements increased by 80%, adding 102 settlements to the 127 that existed previously.
The 33,000 Palestinians displaced from Jenin, Tulkarem, and Nur Shams refugee camps in 2025 remain unable to return to their homes.
Israeli authorities are forcing Palestinians out of their homes around the Old City in East Jerusalem at alarming levels, turning their properties over to settlers, or making room for settlement projects including a park and a cable car project.
Settler violence has become a key driver of displacement, so far displacing 45 entire Palestinian communities since October 2023.
The report documents more patterns that have alarmingly persisted.
Torture and ill-treatment of Palestinian detainees in Israeli custody is all too routine, including sexual violence, even cases of rape. as well as denial of sufficient sustenance and medical care.
And discriminatory practices have further reinforced Israel’s violation of the prohibition of apartheid and racial segregation.
And why does it all seem so endless?
Because not enough is being done to stop it. The ceasefire has not led to any forms of meaningful accountability for the violations committed in the preceding years. Nor has it led to any fundamental reckoning with the underlying driver – the protracted occupation.
Impunity only fuels recurrence. Most of the horrors documented here, and those documented for decades before, have gone unpunished, with no prospect of justice for the victims.
Beyond statements of condemnation, third States must urgently take every measure at their disposal and in conformity with international law to end the Israeli occupation, ensure the dismantlement of existing settlements, protect civilians, achieve accountability for serious violations by all parties, and ensure Palestinians are able to exercise their human rights.
In a context like this, lack of action is not passivity. It is a license.
