Palestine’s deputy UN envoy says Israel shows ‘contempt’ for international law

Palestine’s deputy UN envoy told the UN Security Council on Wednesday that Israel’s actions in Gaza demonstrate “contempt” for international law and expose what he described as a broader collapse of humanitarian protections for civilians.

“The entirety of the edifice of international humanitarian law was built around a singular principle, protecting those who do not take part in hostilities and those who no longer take part in hostilities,” Majed Bamya said during a Security Council session on the protection of civilians in armed conflict.

Bamya said Palestinians were not merely casualties of war but deliberate targets, accusing Israel of systematically attacking civilians, humanitarian workers, journalists and medical personnel in Gaza.

“Israel is attacking Palestinian life. It is attacking those who try to save it and preserve it, those trying to sustain it, those trying to protect it, and those trying to record it,” he said.

He cited figures to illustrate the scale of destruction, saying that “in the span of four months of that war, more children were killed than in the previous four years across the world.”

Bamya also said more than half of humanitarian personnel killed globally over the past three years died in Palestine, while two-thirds of journalists killed in 2024 and 2025 also died there.

He urged the Security Council to confront what he described as an unavoidable choice.

“Either we proclaim that Palestinian civilians are lesser civilians, lesser human beings not entitled to the same protection, or we proclaim that the rules do not apply to Israel, and accept that Palestine becomes the ground zero for the death of international law-based order,” he said.

Syria’s UN envoy Ibrahim Olabi also addressed the council, saying the protection of civilians “is not a mere slogan,” but “an open wound in the memory of Syrian men and women.”

“The Syrian people know all too well what it means for homes to turn into trouble, for hospitals to become targets, and for human beings to become victims without a safe haven,” Olabi said.

He added that Syria was now “determined to transform this memory into commitment.”