NEW YORK, February 2, 2026 (WAFA) – Palestine's Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Minister Riyad Mansour, sent three identical letters on Monday to the UN Secretary-General, the President of the UN Security Council for this month (the United Kingdom), and the President of the UN General Assembly, warning of the catastrophic situation in the Gaza Strip and Israel’s continued violations of the ceasefire and international humanitarian law.
In his letters, Mansour said Israeli occupation forces targeted several civilian areas in Gaza on 31 January, killing at least 31 Palestinians, including women and children. He added that between 14 and 28 January alone, ongoing airstrikes killed 43 more Palestinians, among them children and three journalists, and wounded dozens, as hospitals continue to suffer from severe shortages of essential medical supplies.
Mansour noted that since the ceasefire entered into force more than three months ago, Israel has killed at least 509 Palestinians and injured over 1,405 others. He said the overall death toll since the start of the Israeli genocidal war against the Palestinian people has exceeded 72,000, with more than 171,000 wounded, thousands of whom have sustained permanent disabilities, in addition to thousands still missing.
He questioned how the international community can allow such brutality to continue, and how repeated, flagrant violations of UN Security Council Resolution 2803, the orders of the International Court of Justice, and international humanitarian and human rights law can go unanswered and unaccounted for.
Mansour also pointed to Israeli policies of siege, closure, and collective punishment, as well as violence by the Israeli army and colonist militias across the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
He cited abductions, arrests, and torture of thousands of Palestinian civilians, land and resource theft, and Israel’s campaign against UNRWA and other UN and international organizations operating in Palestine, saying these measures aim to deny Palestinians the means to survive and to force them off their land.
In concluding his letters, Mansour called on the international community to meet its legal, political, and moral obligations by acting immediately to impose a permanent ceasefire, end the massacres and terror against the Palestinian people, and remove all obstacles to the delivery of humanitarian aid by the United Nations, including UNRWA, and other international organizations.
He stressed the need to accelerate efforts to create a political horizon that ends Israel’s illegal occupation and guarantees the Palestinian people’s rights to freedom and independence, and to realize an independent, sovereign State of Palestine on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital, in line with UN resolutions and international law.
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