108 Rights Networks and Organizations, including ICSPR, Urge the Security Council to Take Immediate Action to Stop the Genocide and Save Lives in Gaza Amid Widespread Famine
Date: May 7, 2025
Press Release
108 Rights Networks and Organizations, including ICSPR, Urge the Security Council to Take Immediate Action to Stop the Genocide and Save Lives in Gaza Amid Widespread Famine
The Gaza Strip is enduring a continuous genocidal war for the 576th day, under dire humanitarian and health conditions due to the Israeli occupation forces’ ongoing tightening of the blockade on Gaza for the 64th consecutive day. All border crossings remain closed to humanitarian aid, essential supplies, food, and medicine, and fuel is completely denied entry into the Strip. This has led to an unprecedented deterioration of humanitarian and health conditions, crippling all essential life services, such as the acute shortage of water supplies, the shutdown of sewage treatment plants, and the near-total collapse of healthcare services, including the cessation of hospital operations.
The intensification of the blockade has resulted in the collapse of essential services, particularly the shutdown of bakeries, using starvation as a weapon of coercion, systematically imposed by the Israeli occupation.
According to information from relief organizations and the United Nations, 91% of the population in the Gaza Strip is classified as being in crisis levels of food insecurity (Phase 3 and above), including 345,000 in the highest phase of food insecurity (Phase 5). Additionally, 92% of children aged 6 months to 2 years and breastfeeding mothers are not receiving their nutritional needs, placing them at risk of long-term health complications. Gaza’s Ministry of Health has warned that 60,000 children require treatment for malnutrition. This crisis has pushed 490,000 people into catastrophic famine (Phase 5), including 557,000 women and girls.
The continued blockade has further exacerbated the suffering of over 150,000 people with chronic illnesses, more than 10,000 cancer patients, and over 14,000 injured and sick individuals awaiting proper treatment. Forty percent of cancer patients have died due to lack of access to appropriate medical care, and there have been approximately 57 deaths due to hunger and malnutrition in Gaza.
The Israeli occupation forces are also implementing a policy of dehydration against Gaza’s population by destroying water infrastructure. Currently, 65% of Gaza’s residents cannot access the minimum amount of clean water needed for cooking and drinking. Only 30% of wells are operational, and desalination plants are functioning at minimal capacity due to continuous bombing and the lack of electricity and fuel. This has caused a 95% decrease in available water resources for Gaza’s residents, bringing per capita water consumption down to 3-5 liters per day—well below the UN’s emergency minimum threshold of 15 liters.
These horrifying statistics and warnings—previously and currently issued by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the World Health Organization, and both local and international human rights organizations—confirm that Gaza is facing a real humanitarian catastrophe and famine as a result of the blockade and border closures.
We affirm that the systematic policies adopted by the Israeli occupation directly violate the rulings of the International Court of Justice and constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity under international humanitarian law and international human rights law.
The undersigned organizations call upon:
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The international community to fulfill its legal, ethical, and humanitarian obligations by urgently acting to stop the genocide, halt systematic killings through starvation and thirst, lift the blockade on Gaza—which constitutes illegal collective punishment—and allow the immediate entry of all humanitarian aid, relief goods, and fuel needed to operate hospitals and water stations.
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The United Nations Security Council to act immediately by imposing international sanctions on the Israeli occupation to stop the genocide, end starvation policies, and lift the blockade completely.
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The United Nations General Assembly to suspend the membership of the Israeli occupying state in the General Assembly.
