On Monday, 17 November 2025, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) voted in favour of Resolution 2803, normalising the colonial occupation of Palestinian territory. This resolution was imposed on the Palestinian people without their consent, constituting a blatant violation of the inalienable right of the Palestinian people to self-determination. The United States (U.S.) and its allies, have made it clear that this plan must be accepted, threatening to “finish the job”— an overt reference to resuming the genocide in Gaza. Under international law, such a threat of force invalidates any claim of consent. 

UNSC Resolution 2803, based on U.S. President Donald Trump’s ‘Comprehensive Plan to End the Gaza Conflict’ (the “20-point plan”) announced in late September, was drafted without the participation of Palestinian representatives. Rather than prioritising the fundamental rights of the Palestinian people and promoting accountability for Israel’s international crimes, Resolution 2803, paragraph 4, introduces another form of foreign occupation by implementing the 20-point plan’s creation of a so-called Board of Peace (BoP) headed by President Trump. The BoP will have independent authority to control the finance, immigration, civil administration, and reconstruction of Gaza, among other functions, without any oversight mechanism or legitimate Palestinian participation. We reiterate that the participation of Palestinians in the BoP does not negate its foreign and imposed nature.

Existing information affirms the risks of the weaponisation of aid by the administrative authority, including collaboration with bodies involved in acts of genocide, like the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). It is clear to us that the BoP intends to coordinate its occupation of Gaza with Israel, signalling continuing violations of the laws of occupation. 

Consequently, Gaza would be under the control of an international US-led governing authority, who, through the BoP, will manage a de facto occupation force known as the International Stabilization Force (ISF). The ISF is mandated to demilitarise Gaza, a military objective that lacks any legal basis under international law. This mandate is also in contradiction with Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, stipulating the right for a people to resist colonial domination and occupation. Evidence indicates that the ISF intends to collaborate with dangerous and radical local militias, who have provided support to the Israeli military in the conduct of the genocide in Gaza. Such collaboration would incentivize criminal behavior and endanger the local population. The active involvement of the ISF in Gaza, where its priority is not the urgent realisation of Palestinian self-determination, signals a serious misstep by the UNSC in its mandate to maintain international peace and security.

Israel, which continues to breach the terms of the 20-point plan upon which the so-called “ceasefire” was based, will maintain a presence in a ‘security perimeter’ along the Gaza Strip, normalizing Israel’s control over Palestine’s airspace and waters – thereby facilitating Israel’s ongoing annexation of Palestine, entrenching the ongoing Nakba and Israeli settler-colonial apartheid against the Palestinian people.

With this resolution, the United Nations (UN) is making itself complicit in Israel’s international crimes, contrary to the core principles of the UN Charter and universal inalienable human rights. Resolution 2803 aims to normalise Israel’s historic crimes by excluding any provisions related to accountability, thereby ignoring the illegality and extreme brutality of Israel’s genocidal campaign, its settler-colonial apartheid regime and decades-long unlawful occupation. The resolution fails to even acknowledge Israel’s documented commission of mass atrocity crimes, including genocidal acts, let alone commit to addressing them. The adoption of this resolution signals the UNSC’s shameful abandonment of the UN’s historic responsibility towards the Palestinian people, and represents a crude endorsement of the impunity that has enabled Israel’s unabated pursuit of Palestinian erasure.

Palestinian civil society warns that a foreign occupation of Gaza, based on vague, undefined criteria, will contribute to the further fragmentation of Palestine and its people by entrenching Gaza’s geographic isolation. The fragmentation of Palestinian land breaches Palestine’s territorial integrity, a core component of the right to self-determination. With reconstruction efforts under the control of foreign contractors and “donors”, Palestinians are completely sidelined from any meaningful participation in the reconstruction of Gaza. 

Instead of demanding reparations, the resolution invites international financial institutions to drown Gaza in debt when there is abundant evidence demonstrating the developmental dangers of such dependent economic arrangements. Again, this only institutionalises foreign control over Gaza and increasingly eliminates the conditions necessary for the Palestinian people to achieve self-determination. Resolution 2803 provides for the unconstrained exploitation of Gaza by international groups with no safeguards or protection of the economic and natural resources in the territory and inherently violates the Palestinian people’s right to economic self-determination and sovereignty over our own natural resources. We particularly warn of the dangers that this resolution poses to the untapped energy resources in Palestine’s territorial waters and exclusive economic zone off the Gaza coast. 

Resolution 2803 is inherently unlawful and wholly inconsistent with previous Advisory Opinions and Provisional Measures issued by the International Court of Justice (ICJ). For one, the ICJ’s Advisory Opinion in October 2025 reaffirmed Israel’s obligation to allow the unimpeded entry and distribution of humanitarian aid in Gaza through UN agencies, namely UNWRA. The resolution completely undermines this decision by giving control over the entry and distribution of humanitarian aid to the BoP and empowers foreign actors, through the BoP, to place conditions on the distribution of humanitarian aid in Gaza. The resolution also lacks any guarantees on the amount of humanitarian aid entering Gaza, allowing for the continued weaponisation of aid against Palestinians and continuing the genocidal erasure of the Palestinian people. 

The resolution also fails to acknowledge Palestinian refugees’ right of return, ignoring previous UN resolutions on the return of refugees, and completely overlooking the fact that the majority of people in Gaza are refugees displaced since 1948. We reiterate the principle, affirmed by the International Law Commission, that peremptory norms of international law—such as the Palestinian right to self-determination—prevail over any contradictory UN Security Council resolution. This decision not only threatens the Palestinian people, but also threatens the integrity of the whole international legal system. 

In light of this catastrophic failure by the UNSC to abide by international law and recognise the crucial imperative of prioritising the Palestinian right to self-determination, as recognised by the ICJ in its landmark Advisory Opinion of July 2024, we call on Third States to take immediate meaningful and effective action. This includes rejecting the implementation of Resolution 2803 and demanding, through meaningful action, a lawful and just resolution that:

Prioritises the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, including the rights to self-determination and the right of return of Palestinian refugees and exiles;

Dismantles Israel’s settler-colonial apartheid regime on both sides of the Green Line;

Ends Israel’s unlawful occupation and escalating annexation of Palestine;

Centres accountability for Israel’s historic and ongoing mass atrocity crimes, including support for the establishment of an international, impartial and independent mechanism to investigate crimes committed against the Palestinian people;

Calls for the establishment of a UN-mandated and state-supported oversight mechanism over the reconstruction of Gaza, in consultation with representatives of the Palestinian people and with our explicit consent;

Imposes diplomatic, military and economic sanctions on Israel, including a three-way arms embargo and energy embargo;

Aligns with Third State obligations arising from the International Court of Justice’s Advisory Opinions on the Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem (2024) and the Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall (2004);

Upholds the legal obligations of Third States with respect to the Palestinian people’s right to protection, which is entailed in the right to self-determination as mandated by international law, affirmed by the ICJ’s July 2024 Advisory Opinion on the illegality of the occupation, and reflected in subsequent, relevant UN General Assembly resolutions.

Signatory coalitions and institutions:

Palestinian NGO Network (PNGO)

Palestinian Human Rights Organizations Council (PHROC)