“Stop The Clock On Madness”: UN Expert Appeals To States After Gaza Aid Distribution Shootings

GENEVA (30 May 2025) – The international community must stop the clock on continued and deliberate misuse of humanitarian language and mechanisms by Israel aimed at obscuring and facilitating the commission of atrocity crimes in Gaza, a UN expert said today.

“We continue to witness a brutal humanitarian camouflage, where the red lines have led to massive atrocities. Israel pretends to promote humanitarian solutions in order to continue its control of Gaza and sustain its systematic denial of life-saving humanitarian aid to the starving population in the besieged strip,” said Francesca Albanese, the Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territory.

“It is a deliberate strategy – aimed at masking atrocities, displacing the displaced, bombing the bombarded, burning Palestinians alive and maiming survivors,” Albanese warned. “All camouflaged behind the language of aid, to divert international attention from legal accountability, in Israel’s attempt to dismantle the very principles upon which humanitarian law was built.”

Albanese echoed concerns by the UN and other humanitarian actors about the Israeli aid system and the establishment of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation – a body backed by Israel and the United States to distribute aid under a system of full military control. The proposal has been criticised for failing to respect international law and the humanitarian principles of humanity, impartiality, independence and neutrality.

On 27 May, thousands of Palestinian flocked towards the foundation's distribution sites to receive food packages after several days without food.

“Within hours, horrifying images and videos emerged from Gaza demonstrating how this mechanism functions and how the Israeli army fired on unarmed Palestinian civilians. It seems that there is no limit to Israel's actions,” the expert said.

At least 3 people were killed and 46 injured and seven went missing according to authorities in Gaza.

“As the occupying power, Israel must agree to allow and facilitate the aid and access cannot be assessed based on political or military considerations,” the expert said. Aid that has entered the besieged enclave after Israel’s 11-week blockade is a drop in the ocean, she said.

“To starve a population for months and then shoot at them when they clamour for food is unmitigated cruelty”, Albanese said.

“The time for sanctions is now, as Israeli politicians continue to call for the extermination of babies while over 80 percent of the Israeli society, according to Israeli media, ask for the forcible removal of Palestinians from Gaza. The time to save life is shrinking,” Albanese said. “I am reiterating my call for a full arms embargo and suspension of all forms of trade with Israel by all States. In a world of growing consensus that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, using ceaseless bombardment and starvation, while only a minority of the population opposes it, is an affront to the UN principles and values, States can no longer sit by and watch.”

“The International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion of 19 July 2024, and its Orders issued on 26 January and 24 May 2024 in the case South Africa v. Israel provided States with the imperative to act,” the Special Rapporteur said.

"Every day that has passed since without tangible action from States is steeped in the blood of innocent Palestinians."

“The gravity of Israel’s conduct is matched only by the complicity of States that continue to provide political and material cover, and by corporations that profit from Israel’s crimes,” she said.

“Accountability can no longer be deferred. The UN and States need urgently to establish an independent protection mechanism that Israel shall not stop - it has no sovereignty over the occupied territory, and it is about time States implement it. The people of the world are watching, and history will remember”.

Francesca Albanese is the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967.

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