The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel has confirmed in its report of September 16, 2025 that Israel has committed genocide in the Gaza Strip.
This determination reflects what legal experts, civil society, and humanitarian actors have denounced for months: the mass killing of civilians, the destruction of essential infrastructure, and the deliberate use of famine as a weapon of war, contributing to the intentional and systematic destruction of Palestinians as a group. Hospitals, universities, schools, and housing have been systematically destroyed. Access to food, water, and medicine has been deliberately obstructed, and famine has been formally declared by UN mechanisms.
This is not a humanitarian crisis caused by natural disaster; it is the direct result of deliberate policies implemented by the government of Israel and its Prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who is currently facing an arrest warrant issued on 21 November 2024 for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity as part of the ICC investigation in Palestine.
Defiance of International Justice
On 19 July 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued its Advisory Opinion, finding that Israel’s occupation policies and practices, including in East Jerusalem, are incompatible with international law. It emphasized that all states have an obligation not to recognize or aid unlawful situations and to act to bring them to an end.
The UN General Assembly welcomed the ICJ’s Advisory Opinion and ordered Israel to end the illegal occupation of Palestinian territory as soon as possible, but no later than September 18, 2025. This deadline has now passed, yet the illegal occupation continues. In fact, the Israeli government has continued to escalate violations: accelerating settlement expansion, pursuing forcible transfer, and openly defying binding international legal rulings. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has warned that impunity is fueling ongoing atrocities and that the credibility of international law itself is at stake.
The AED also condemns the United States’ punitive measures against UN experts and its announced and earlier designated sanctions against judges and prosecutors of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and is equally alarmed by the measures taken against the UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine, Francesca Albanese, and human rights organizations engaged in the ICC’s criminal investigation of Israeli members of government. By targeting independent international justice mechanisms, these actions not only obstruct victims’ access to justice but undermine the global system of accountability painstakingly built after the horrors of the Second World War.
Europe’s Complicity Through Inaction
European governments and the EU have failed in their legal and moral obligations. Despite mounting evidence of genocide and the ICJ’s rulings, they have refused to adopt necessary measures, accordingly to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which provides that states are obliged to prevent and punish genocide. Inaction in the face of overwhelming evidence is not neutrality — it can be interpreted as complicity.
Breaking Silence: International Solidarity in Action
The AED also salutes the courage of all the solidarity activists that seek to break the unlawful blockade of Gaza and deliver essential humanitarian supplies. UN experts have affirmed the legitimacy of this action and called for full protection of the Flotilla and its participants. In the face of deliberate starvation policies, the Global Sumud Flotilla represents the spirit of international solidarity and civil resistance against impunity.
The AED reaffirms its support for such initiatives and condemns the unlawful and forceful interception of the Global Sumud Flotilla vessels and detention of the solidarity activists off the coast of Gaza for just carrying out an entirely peaceful humanitarian mission.
Solidarity with Palestinian Lawyers
The AED expresses its full solidarity with Palestinian lawyers and bar association, who are themselves under attack. Israel has bombed the headquarters of the Palestine Bar Association in Gaza, destroyed archives, and obliterated the legal infrastructure of justice, including courthouses, law offices and the Palace of Justice. At least two-hundred Palestinian lawyers have been killed, while those who survive face the destruction of their homes, offices, and livelihoods. (11)
The AED also condemns the U.S. sanctions against Al-Haq, the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights (Al Mezan), and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) – key Palestinian human rights organizations pursuing international criminal accountability for crimes committed in Palestine – directly and adversely interfering with the ability of Palestinian lawyers to carry out their crucial work. (12)
In the West Bank, lawyers continue to endure daily harassment, restrictions. These attacks not only target individuals but also seek to annihilate the very possibility of justice for Palestinians. The AED recalls that the protection of lawyers and judicial institutions is a cornerstone of the rule of law, and their destruction is itself a crime that demands accountability.
In light of the gravity of the situation, AED urgently calls upon EU governments to take action to establish:
- An immediate, unconditional, and permanent ceasefire in Gaza, immediate, the liberation of all hostages and political prisoners illegally detained.
- The recognition of the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination and concrete steps to end the unlawful occupation.
- Unhindered and comprehensive humanitarian access to end the man-made famine without delay.
- Full support for international accountability, including ICC investigations and prosecutions of those responsible for genocide and other international crimes.
- Effective sanctions against Israel, including the suspension of arms transfers and all international agreements that facilitate grave violations of international law.
These demands are urgent not only for the survival and dignity of the Palestinian people but also for the integrity of the international legal order and the health of democracy itself. To remain silent or inactive in the face of genocide is to betray the very foundations of international law.
The AED stands with all those who defend justice, human rights, and peace, and reaffirms its commitment to fight against impunity, and the erosion of democratic freedoms.
European Democratic Lawyers (AED)F