On International Youth Day (ICSRP) Palestinian Youth Pay the Heaviest Price for Policies of Starvation, Deprivation of Rights, and Ongoing Aggression

Date: 11 August 2025

Press Release

On International Youth Day

International Commission (ICSRP): Palestinian Youth Pay the Heaviest Price for Policies of Starvation, Deprivation of Rights, and Ongoing Aggression

The world celebrates International Youth Day annually on 12 August to focus the international community’s attention on youth issues and celebrate their potential as partners in the contemporary global community. The day was adopted by the United Nations under Resolution 54/120 in 1999, with the aim of promoting young people’s rights and well-being in all fields and raising awareness of their political, social, economic, and cultural concerns and aspirations.

This year, the occasion comes amid an unprecedented human rights and humanitarian catastrophe facing Palestinian youth—particularly in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank—as a result of the genocidal war, siege, and ongoing Israeli aggression. The youth crisis has shifted from one of economic hardship and lack of employment opportunities to systematic deprivation of rights aimed at undermining the foundations of resilience and dignified survival.

The International Commission to Support Palestinian Rights (ICSRP), while affirming that Palestinian youth are no longer partners in construction and development but have become the direct victims of occupation policies intended to destroy an entire generation, documents the following catastrophic indicators:

• Killing, injury, and disability: Young people aged 18–29 account for approximately 25% of all those killed in the aggression and genocidal war. Tens of thousands have also sustained various injuries, with thousands left permanently disabled or suffering limb amputations. In the West Bank and Jerusalem, more than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed, the overwhelming majority of whom were young people.

• Imprisonment and arbitrary detention: Young people are subjected to widespread arrest and abduction operations. They constitute the largest proportion of more than 9,500 prisoners and detainees held in Israeli prisons, where they face unprecedented conditions of torture, starvation, and enforced disappearance.

• Destruction of the academic future and educational institutions: Hundreds of university students have been killed, along with dozens of young academics and teachers, while 90% of educational institutions and universities have been directly destroyed. This has deprived hundreds of thousands of young people and students of their fundamental right to school and university education.

• Rising unemployment and poverty: Youth unemployment in the Gaza Strip has exceeded 80%, while in the West Bank it has reached 40%, leading to widespread extreme poverty and livelihood insecurity.

• Destruction of the economic infrastructure: More than 85% of economic and commercial establishments have been destroyed, depriving hundreds of thousands of young people of their right to work and earn their daily livelihood.

• Collapse of social protection and reliance on aid: Social protection programmes have come to an almost complete halt, leaving more than 95% of young people entirely dependent on irregular humanitarian assistance.

• Psychological and health collapse: Rates of mental health disorders among young people have risen to more than 80%, amid the absence of psychological and social care and the destruction of the health system.

• Child labour and school dropout: There has been a sharp increase in child labour and young people dropping out of education as a direct result of economic collapse and the loss of family breadwinners.

• Forced displacement: More than two million people, the majority of them young people, have been forcibly displaced and now live in shelters and damaged tents that lack even the minimum requirements for a dignified life.

ICSRP believes that this compounded deterioration—resulting from occupation crimes, the continuation of political division, and the marginalisation of the role of youth—has led to the forced and near-total exclusion of Palestinian youth from decision-making circles and political participation. Feelings of frustration, helplessness, loss of hope for the future, and the pressures of daily survival have pushed broad segments of young people toward political alienation and a sharp decline in their confidence in the political system and official institutions. This has deprived Palestinian society of young leadership capacities that should be participating in decision-making and setting national and humanitarian priorities during this critical stage.

As ICSR P extends its greetings and appreciation for the steadfastness and sacrifices of Palestinian youth on their International Day, it affirms that the violations faced by Palestinian youth constitute grave and blatant breaches of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and international humanitarian law—particularly the Fourth Geneva Convention. They also represent a failure to uphold the international community’s commitment to the principle of “leaving no one behind” enshrined in the Sustainable Development Goals.

ICSRP considers the silence of the international community and the failure of development and UN institutions to respond to this catastrophe to be complicity through inaction in the crime of depriving, starving, and stripping an entire generation of its rights and hopes. Reaffirming its full support for young people until they obtain all their legitimate and guaranteed rights, and stressing the need to address their harsh conditions and end the humanitarian suffering caused by occupation violations and internal political division, ICSR P records and calls for the following:

1. ICSRP calls on the international community and its various institutions to declare an urgent youth emergency, strengthen the pursuit of justice, and confront Israeli policies of genocide and starvation against Palestinian youth through the implementation of international legal standards. This must ensure Israel’s accountability before international courts for its crimes against young people, as well as compensation for material, moral, and psychological harm.

2. ICSRP urges all influential international actors and donor bodies to strengthen international cooperation to find swift and serious solutions to the humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, through the launch of an urgent international employment and social-protection plan based on the principle of “work for wages” and reconstruction. Such a plan must end years of international failure and restore confidence in the rules of international humanitarian law.

3. ICSRP calls on official Palestinian bodies to place youth issues and relief at the top of the government agenda, redirecting resources to support the resilience of young people in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and Jerusalem, while ensuring emergency social-protection programmes that guarantee a dignified life.

4. ICSRP calls on the Palestinian Government and national forces to involve Palestinian youth as genuine and active partners in designing and implementing all relief, early recovery, and reconstruction programmes. Sustainable funding must be secured to establish safe spaces for education and training within displacement centres, restore vocational and university education, rebuild young people’s self-confidence, and safeguard their rights and future.

5. ICSRP calls for strengthening youth participation in political parties, civil-society organisations, and humanitarian and national action groups, enabling young people to lead recovery initiatives and confront the effects of aggression and poverty, towards an integrated society that relies on the capacities of its youth to defend their national and human rights.

6. ICSRP renews its call on relevant and governmental bodies for a full exemption from taxes and fees for small youth-led projects, along with emergency solutions and urgent economic facilities for young graduates and affected workers. Comprehensive psychological and health-support services must also be provided to address collective trauma, as this is the only way to preserve young people’s capacities and prevent their alienation or forced migration.

End
International Commission to Support Palestinian Rights (ICSRP)