麻豆APP

This newsletter informs about recent and upcoming activities of Civil Society Organizations working on the question of Palestine. The Committee and the Division for Palestinian Rights of the UN Secretariat provide the information “as is” without warranty of any kind, and do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, or reliability of the information contained in the websites linked in the newsletter.

Middle?East?

• On 27 February,??issued the report???Key findings?include?the?advancement of plans for 33,519 new housing units for Israelis in occupied East Jerusalem, the planning of 4 new settlements in East Jerusalem, located within or on the edges of Palestinian neighborhoods, the approval of the E1 plan and publication of tenders for its construction, alongside steps to seal off the entire Ma’ale Adumim area (the heart of the West Bank) from Palestinians, and the promotion of?4 new settlements in the outer ring surrounding East Jerusalem.
• On?25 February,??released?the?joint report?“Israeli Appropriation and Exploitation in Palestine Using?Medjool?Dates”.?The report?highlights?that the disparity between Israeli?and Palestinian date exports is a result of intentional roadblocks imposed by Israel?as part of its illegal occupation policies.?The?impact of the?production and sale of?Medjool?dates by Israeli companies?includes?land appropriation?and?exploitation of Palestinian?labor?and?natural resources.
• On 25 February, MIFTAH issued the position paper? on the government of Israel’s approval of land registration in the occupied West Bank as Israeli “state property”. The NGO argues?that the policies of dispossession in the West Bank, ranging from land registration changes and planning authority transfers to settlement expansion, must be understood as interconnected with broader efforts that simultaneously erase Palestinian presence in the Gaza Strip.
• On 25 February,? issued a press release on the “ethnic cleansing in the West Bank”. The NGO reports that Israel’s ethnic cleansing in the West Bank has so far displaced more than 4,000 Palestinians from their homes, with 51 communities expelled in their entirety and 14 communities in part. It warns that settler-violence has become far more extreme over the past year, including pogroms and severe assaults on Palestinian residents inside their homes.
• On 24 February,??published?its?2025 Annual Impact Report, where it described how it responded?to the war on Gaza, worsening conditions in Israel’s incarceration system, a deepening crisis in the West Bank,?among other challenges, through?direct medical intervention with public campaigning and policy-change work to protect lives, uphold human dignity, and reaffirm healthcare as a universal and inalienable right.
• On 19 February,??including Palestinian civil society organizations?sent a joint letter?to all Permanent Representatives to the 麻豆APP Office?in Geneva, urging hybrid participation during informal consultations on resolutions throughout 2026 UN Human Rights Council sessions.?They urged?Member?States, particularly those introducing resolutions during the HRC sessions, to ensure that all informal consultations are made available on?Webex?to allow for broad and diverse participation from civil society?organizations, human rights defenders.?They called on?Member States to address the ongoing?UN liquidity crisis?and its dire consequences on the?work of the HRC and to prevent creating further restrictions on civil participation and engagement with the HRC.
• On 12 February,??issued the report “Ill Will: Israel’s Policy on Medical Evacuations from the Gaza Strip”.?The?report explores the medical evacuation policy in place until?now,?and?demanding?that Israel?facilitate?patients’ access to medical treatment as a matter of urgency and to all the destinations that can accept them, including facilities in the West Bank and Israel.?Gisha’s position is that Gaza is occupied territory and as such, Israel is?obligated?by the laws of war governing belligerent occupation. It has a duty to respect and preserve civilian life and to positively attend to the needs of the civilian population in Gaza, an obligation anchored in?Article?43 of the Hague Regulations of 1907.?

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Africa,?Asia?and?Europe?

• On?3 March,??informed it?delivered an oral statement during the discussion under Item 2 at the 61st session of the 麻豆APP Human Rights Council in Geneva, within the interactive dialogue with the High Commissioner for Human Rights on his report concerning the Occupied Palestinian Territory, submitted pursuant to Human Rights Council resolution 58/2.?The NGO?urged the Human Rights Council to?establish?a clear accountability framework addressing forcible transfer and the denial of?return, and?called for the protection of UNRWA’s mandate as an essential safeguard for Palestinian refugee rights until a just solution is achieved.?
• On 26 February,??issued the press release “Global?impunity?fueling?Israel’s?unlawful?annexation?measures in the West Bank”.?The NGO?stated?that since December 2025, Israeli authorities have unleashed?a series of unlawful measures deliberately designed to?dispossess?Palestinians in the?occupied?West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and to make the annexation of the territory an irreversible reality. These measures are in brazen defiance of the ICJ Advisory Opinions of 2004 and 2024, the latter of which unequivocally found Israel’s presence in the OPT to be unlawful.??
• On 23 February,??issued?the?paper?“Key?obligations of?third States with?respect to the?economic?activities?sustaining – in?whole or in?part – the?relevant?internationally?wrongful conduct by Israel”.?It analyzes Israel’s violations of multiple peremptory norms of international law, the scope of activities sustaining the offending conduct, third state obligations and the consequences?of these binding international obligations.?
• On 23 February,??held the policy lab?“After Gaza’s Genocide: What World Order?”, featuring?Noura Erakat and Jake?Romm.?The speakers discussed?how Gaza helped shatter the old status quo and what that break?reveals about?the world being built in its wake.

North America?

• On 4 March,?the? published its latest podcast “What do West Bank Palestinian youth want?” in which FMEP President Lara Friedman spoke with author and scholar Nathan J. Brown about his recent article “”.?
• On 3 March,?the??issued?the?article “How Israel’s Siege of Gaza Is Deepening the Water and Public Health Crisis”, describing how Gaza has endured, since October 2023, one of its most severe water and sanitation crises, as extensive bombardment has devastated critical infrastructure, triggering prolonged energy shortages and compounding environmental strain. Damaged systems and poor maintenance have made water inaccessible to those who need it, preventing fulfillment of basic needs such as drinking, cooking, and hygiene.
• On 24 February,??reported that?Israeli?authorities plan to?ban 37 international NGOs from operating in Gaza and the West Bank as of 1 March for refusing to provide the Israeli government with lists and biodata of their staff as part of new registration requirements. Also, in the West Bank, settler violence is on the rise, illegal settlements are expanding, and campaigns of forced displacement and housing demolitions are ongoing. HRW stated, “Making the distribution of humanitarian aid to Palestinians a national security concern is yet another Israeli ‘assault on dignity’ of Palestinians and part of a larger pattern of debilitating Palestinian civil society and the international presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”?

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United?Nations?

• On 3 March,? Philippe Lazzarini issued a statement denouncing the attack on education in the OPT. In Gaza, hundreds of thousands of children have been out of formal school since October 2023. UNRWA is keeping them learning in temporary spaces and online lessons, despite huge obstacles. But they need to get back into the classroom. In the West Bank, displacement, school closures and daily stresses put 48,000 Palestine Refugee students at risk.
• On?2 March,?UN experts issued a joint statement to condemn the “Board of Peace” and call a reparative, rights-based approach to reconstruction in Gaza. “The right of Palestinians to self-determination is inalienable, it is not a conditional privilege,” the experts said. “Decision-making concerning Gaza’s reconstruction and future should be in the hands of Palestinians, who should be able to remain and return voluntarily and in safety to their land and properties. Their right to self-determination also extends to decisions concerning the reconstruction of Gaza and the type of development they wish to pursue. Such decisions should not be imposed by foreign powers.”?