Letter from participants of the Global Sumud Flotilla to the member states of the UN on the occasion of the UN Summit on the Question of Palestine

We write, as citizens and participants of the Global Sumud Flotilla, to stress that the recognition of the State of Palestine will remain an empty gesture without concrete measures to halt the extermination of its people, the destruction of their communities, and the annexation of their land.

Right now, as we sail across the Mediterranean Sea, the genocide against the Palestinian people is escalating rapidly. The state of Israel has reentered Gaza City with lethal force, flattening its infrastructure, killing its residents, and forcing survivors to flee from their ancestral homes.

Last year, the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution ES-10/24, which established the good faith obligations of all Member-States to take immediate action in order to defend international law and the fundamental rights of the Palestinian people.

Yet one year later – days after the deadline established by that Resolution – Member-States continue to arm, aid, and abet the State of Israel in its assault on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, signaling their criminal liability under the Genocide Convention of 1948.

Today, many of those Member-States – following the mass mobilisation of their citizens on land and at sea – have gathered to recognise the State of Palestine in order to “keep the two-state solution alive.”

Today’s Summit, however, cannot be a cause for celebration, while bombs continue to fall, bullets continue to fly, and illegal settlements continue to expand throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

We, the participants of the Global Sumud Flotilla, have been forced by your inaction to mount a popular response to the horrors of this genocide, united across continents by a common mission to break the illegal siege and establish a humanitarian corridor to reach the starving people of Palestine.

We, your citizens, will not be satisfied with signatures, declarations, or condemnations. Only immediate, comprehensive, and concrete measures will be sufficient to halt the genocide and rescue international law from ruin.

From the Mediterranean Sea, we therefore ask: Beyond mere words, what concrete actions will you take? What is your plan to stand up for the fundamental rights of the Palestinian people, to break the ties of complicity that bind you to the genocide against them, and to defend humanity before it is too late?

As our flotilla sails onward to Gaza, we await your response.

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