CAN on Nakba 2025: stop the genocide, end the occupation and allow aid into Gaza
15 May 2025
Over two million Palestinians in Gaza are living in a forced famine, while the death toll has surpassed 52,000, due to Israel’s ongoing and ruthless actions since October 2023.
Israel’s weaponisation, politicisation and militarisation of humanitarian aid is as unjust as its bombardment and illegal settlements of Palestinian lands, its vicious killings of aid workers and use of mass graves, and its attack on the peaceful Gaza Freedom Flotilla in international waters.
Marking the 77th Nakba, Climate Action Network calls on world leaders to pressure Israel to stop the genocide, end Israeli expansionist and occupation plans, immediately open the Rafah Crossing to allow in food, water and medicine, and chart a way forward for justice and peace for Palestinians. Over 3,000 aid trucks and 116,000 metric tonnes of food are ready and waiting to enter Gaza – obstructed solely and in plain sight by the Israeli military.
CAN supports the demand from Palestinian and international civil society for the immediate organisation and deployment of a Diplomatic Humanitarian Convoy to accompany the aid trucks, and to enter Gaza alongside them. The humanitarian efforts should be in the hands of Palestinian humanitarian groups with the support of the UN. All attempts by Israel, the US and the EU to take control of the distribution of aid in Gaza through the use of the military, private security groups and corporates is not acceptable and has been criticised by the UN and international humanitarian groups.
May 15 is the day of commemoration for the Nakba, also known as the Palestinian Catastrophe, which led to the destruction of Palestinian society and homeland in 1948, and the permanent displacement of a majority of Palestinians.
This year, it is not only the annihilation of the Palestinian way of life that we are witnessing, but an all out genocide and an Israeli plan for the further occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, and with most world leaders enabling Israel rather than stopping the slaughter and unlawful encroachment. As of May 13 2025, 52,908 deaths have been recorded since October 2023, with approximately 50 additional killings on May 14 in overnight airstrikes. Of the overall death toll, 70 percent continue to be women and children, while there have been 118,491 injuries.
Israel stands accused of plausibly committing a genocide against the people of Gaza by the UN’s International Court of Justice, while UN experts found that the regime has increasingly employed sexual, reproductive and other forms of gender-based violence against Palestinians as part of “a broader effort to undermine their right to self-determination and carried out genocidal acts through the systematic destruction of sexual and reproductive healthcare facilities.”
Despite these harrowing findings, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu being wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes, including the use of starvation as a weapon of war, Western countries continue to welcome him and support Israel with arms and finance. Impunity is the order of the day.
Last week, twenty UN experts said countries face a choice between acting to halt the violence and looking at “the annihilation of the Palestinian population” in the territory. “The decision is stark: remain passive and witness the slaughter of innocents or take part in crafting a just resolution,” they said in a statement, urging the world to avert the “moral abyss we are descending into.”
With climate justice, social justice and human rights so inextricably linked, the climate justice movement cannot remain silent in the face of a genocide that destabilises regional and global peace, security and a sustainable future.
CAN calls on global leaders to use all channels to ensure Israel’s immediate compliance with International Law and international humanitarian law, assign high-level officials to the Diplomatic Humanitarian Convoy requested by Palestinian civil society, open the borders for humanitarian aid, restore the ceasefire, and re-engage in genuine negotiations to ensure lasting peace, dignity, and justice for the Palestinian people.
ENDS/
Notes to editors
Photo: Siwar Ashour, born in November, has only known war. Her mother, Najwa Aram, 23, gave birth in the one surviving room of a house that was otherwise destroyed and which 11 other people were sharing. Credit: Doaa Albaz / Anadolu/Getty Images
Climate Action Network’s previous statements and reactions regarding Gaza and Israel are available here.
Contact:
media@climatenetwork.org