Palestinian Lives in Shatters, Speakers Tell Security Council, as Israel Disputes Narrative

Despite the ceasefire announced eight months ago, humanitarian conditions in the Gaza Strip remain bleak, with 70 per cent of the population lacking dignified housing, sanitation systems destroyed and Israel still blocking much of the food and medical aid required to meet Palestinian residents' "immense" needs, a senior UN official told the Security Council today.

"Gaza still faces profound uncertainty and immense human suffering," said Ramiz Alakbarov, who serves as Deputy Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process and UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator.

Mr. Alakbarov briefed the 15-member Council alongside two civil society experts, delivering a quarterly update on the implementation of resolution 2334 (2016) - a landmark text which declared that Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory were illegal under international law.

However, he also focused much of his briefing on the implementation of resolution 2803 (2025), through which the Council endorsed the United States-facilitated Comprehensive Peace Plan in Gaza in October 2025 and authorized the deployment of an international stabilization force.

"The legitimate needs, concerns and aspirations of the people of Gaza must be addressed through the full implementation of [that resolution]," stressed the Deputy Special Coordinator. Instead, the situations in both Gaza and the West Bank have remained volatile. Israeli air strikes and military operations have continued across Gaza, resulting in further fatalities and bringing the total killed since the ceasefire to over 1,000, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

Meanwhile, he said, Israeli forces continue to expand their territorial control, now holding approximately 70 per cent of the Strip. "This encroachment of areas under Israeli control is reducing the space available to civilians," he said. "Palestinians in Gaza are concentrated in increasingly limited areas, living amid insecurity and violence."

Needs in Gaza Immense

Noting improvements in the humanitarian situation in Gaza since the signing of the ceasefire, he said the share of households going to bed hungry dropped from 92 per cent to 36 per cent. More humanitarian access has been granted. "But […] the needs in Gaza remain immense," he stressed, warning that 70 per cent of the population still lacks dignified shelter and sanitation conditions are alarming.

Turning to the West Bank, where the situation continues to deteriorate, he said Israeli military activity continued in Jenin, displacing Palestinians. He voiced concern over escalating violence in the West Bank, adding: "I am appalled at the numerous instances in which officials glorified violence and engaged in dangerous provocations, incitement and inflammatory language."

Outlining several important developments on the political front - including a recent Palestinian Authority decree committing to holding presidential elections in 2027 - he strongly condemned Israel's plan to establish military facilities at the Sheikh Jarrah compound of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), in East Jerusalem, and urged it to rescind that decision.

System of Coercion in Occupied Palestinian Territory

Itay Epshtain, Special Advisor on International Law and Humanitarian Principles for the Norwegian Refugee Council, also briefed the Council. He stressed that, in the case of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, several phenomena are occurring which are "too often treated separately" - settlement-expansion and settler violence; demolitions and displacement; the obstruction of humanitarian relief and the fragmentation of Palestinian governance.

Together, he said, those converging trends create a system of coercion in which "settler violence forms part of the broader architecture through which territory is unlawfully acquired and controlled". Indeed, more than 70 per cent of displaced households identified threats against women and children, including sexualized threats and gender-based harassment, as decisive in their decision to flee.

Meanwhile, he went on, Israel's land title settlement process - which "may sound technical" - uses arbitrary and unlawful planning rules to turn unrecognized Palestinian ownership records into a tool of dispossession. What Council resolution 2334 (2016) framed as a call upon States has, since 2024, "acquired the character of a judicially endorsed legal obligation".

Against that backdrop, he called for the restitution of homes, orchards and olive groves to their rightful owners, compensation when restitution is impossible and the protection communities at risk of forcible transfer "before they are uprooted, not only assistance after injury is felt".

Journalist Account of Palestinian Lives under Occupation, Violence

Also addressing the Council via videoconference was Mariam Barghoutti, an independent journalist, writer and political analyst, who said she represents that testimony of countless voices that are rarely able to enter the UN's chambers "except as statistics". She described a reality in which, every day, Palestinians go to school, work, family gatherings, weddings and funerals while being relentlessly threatened by armed Israeli violence.

She recalled that she witnessed first hand Israeli soldiers in the West Bank cities of Jenin and Tulkarem denying - at gunpoint - pregnant Palestinian women access to hospitals "just a few metres away". An Israeli soldier in the town of Silwad was caught on camera, after shooting a Palestinian teenager, saying: "Thank God, he is dead now."

"These are the lives of Palestinians day in and day out," she said. While there is a tendency for Israeli representatives to describe settlement-expansion as "extremist" or "exceptional", the facts on the ground reveal coordinated actions aimed at systemic ethnic cleaning in the West Bank.

"There is a war being waged on a community that is depleted of socioeconomic and medical capacity to - at a very bare minimum - stay alive," she stressed, emphasizing that it threatens a viable solution for Palestinian self-determination while replacing Palestinians themselves "in real time".

Delegates Debate Situations in West Bank, Gaza

Council members also took the floor to share their views.

"Regrettably, what we have heard today gives us no cause for optimism," said the representative of the Russian Federation. Warning that resolution 2334 (2016) is not just being ignored but openly violated, she declared: "Settler violence is systemic and [Israel's] judicial and law enforcement system is failing to take meaningful steps to address it." Turning to Gaza, she said resolution 2803 (2025) "has unfortunately remained on paper only", and there is currently no basis upon which to speak about a lasting peace.

China's representative agreed, while also echoing grave concerns about the tensions gripping the West Bank and the erosion of a two-State solution. "The international community must end this negative trajectory with robust action," he stressed. Peace must be restored in Gaza, with all the parties - especially Israel - complying with the terms of the ceasefire.

"It is likely that this is the most critical juncture at which the Occupied Palestinian Territory has stood in decades," said Colombia's delegate, Council President for June, speaking in her national capacity. The scale and speed at which Israel has adopted new annexation measures "leave little margin for ambiguity". Coupled with the destruction in Gaza, they would erase the very possibility of a sovereign and independent Palestinian State, she warned.

The representatives of Denmark, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Panama also noted that the situation on the ground in Gaza remains far from that envisioned under the Comprehensive Peace Plan. "The protection of the civilian population is, and must remain, an obligation that is binding upon all parties," said the latter, spotlighting the severe impacts of Gaza's ongoing humanitarian crisis on children and young people.

Calls Mount to Stop Israel's Settlement-Expansion

Those speakers, among others, also echoed the briefers' concerns over the rapidly worsening situation in the West Bank, and its implications for a broader peace.

"Israel's increased settlement-expansion […] deliberately fragments the West Bank and undermines the viability of a two-State solution," said Latvia's delegate. Condemning settler violence, she also encouraged the Board of Peace and the mediators to push harder to implement the Comprehensive Peace Plan. "All parties must abide by the commitments they have made," she said.

Noting that Council resolution 2334 (2016) calls for measures to reverse negative trends in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, the representative of France said his country - alongside European partners - has adopted new sanctions against those responsible for violence in settlements.

The representative of Pakistan, echoed by Liberia's delegate, decried Israel's controversial new project to carve out isolated West Bank enclaves and make a Palestinian State impossible. He pointed to an "ecosystem of occupation" where settlement expansion, annexation, demolitions, forced evictions and displacement are mutually reinforcing and enabled by military and legal means.

The representative of the United Kingdom joined others in sounding the alarm over Israel's continued settlement-expansion, while citing an average of six attacks against Palestinians every day in the West Bank since the start of 2026. Somalia's delegate, meanwhile, pointed out that "the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza and the deterioration in the West Bank are not separate crises", but, rather, different manifestations of the same culture of impunity.

Way Forward for US-Led Gaza Peace Plan

Several speakers, however, voiced more optimism about the situation - especially against the backdrop of the Comprehensive Plan for Peace.

"Life is starting again in Gaza," said the representative of the United States, recounting a story of a young girl who walked into a temporary school in Gaza after two years of war and received a bag of school supplies. "We must turn this ceasefire, as imperfect as it is […] into a lasting peace." However, the only way the peace plan will move forward is if Hamas disarms and ends its intimidation campaigns against Palestinians who oppose it, he stressed.

"The first phase of the [Comprehensive Peace] Plan marked a welcome step forward, with early positive results," said Greece's delegate, while acknowledging that the humanitarian reality on the ground remains "catastrophic". Bahrain's delegate, while also looking forward to the Plan's full implementation, nevertheless emphasized that any peace must start with an independent Palestinian State.

"Annexation is an act of war," said the Permanent Observer of Palestine, who also addressed the Council, adding: "It kills all peace efforts." Israel has decided to entrench its occupation, rather than end it, both in Gaza and the West Bank. "These policies" - meant to isolate communities from each other - "come at a heavy price for Palestinian communities and Palestinian families", he said.

Israel's delegate, meanwhile, regretted that the Council remains on "anti-Israel autopilot" in its quarterly meetings. Again and again, Hamas makes a claim that is repeated by non-governmental organizations and then rubber-stamped by the UN. Against that backdrop, he urged the Council to put its pressure where it belongs - on Hamas, not on Israel.