Source: DAWN:
(Washington, D.C., October 23, 2025) – The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) should incorporate an immediate arms embargo on Israel, international control of Gaza’s borders to end Israel’s siege, and a mandate for an international fact-finding mission as part of the International Stabilization Force (ISF) resolution currently under negotiation, said DAWN today.
In addition, the UNSC should ensure that the task force created under the ceasefire agreement to discover human remains provides equal resources and urgency to identify Palestinian victims as it does Israeli victims.
“If the purpose of the International Stabilization Force is to protect Palestinians from further violence, it must have the authority to control all borders into Gaza and allow the unhindered delivery of aid to the besieged territory,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of DAWN. “Deploying peacekeepers to Gaza without curbing weapons to Israel will do nothing to curb its capacity to resume its atrocities.”
Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty confirmed that Egypt is advocating for a UNSC resolution to establish an ISF, and that negotiations for such a resolution, led by France, Britain, and the United States, are currently underway. DAWN first called for international peacekeeping forces to protect Palestinian civilians and end Israel’s atrocities in Gaza in March 2024, subsequently explaining that “Israel has made clear that no amount of pleading, pressure or negotiation will end its atrocities; only international peacekeeping forces can achieve that.” In August 2025, the State of Palestine formally requested protection forces for Gaza.
The new UNSC resolution should include an immediate, comprehensive arms embargo on Israel, as recommended by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in its July 2024 advisory opinion and UNGA Resolution ES-10/24 passed in September 2024. Only such an arms embargo will curb Israel’s ability to resume its atrocities in Gaza. The Security Council has repeatedly imposed arms embargoes explicitly in response to systematic international law violations, including in South Sudan in 2018, Central African Republic in 2013, and Yemen in 2015, establishing a clear precedent for such measures when parties commit atrocities against civilians.
On October 22, 2025, the ICJ issued an advisory opinion finding that Israel “deliberately prevented food from reaching the civilian population in Gaza” and violated its obligations under international law to ensure the basic needs of Palestinians are met. The court ruled that “[t]he occupying power may never invoke reasons of security to justify the general suspension of all humanitarian activities in occupied territory,” rejecting Israel’s justifications for blocking aid and ordering it to grant access to humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees. The UNSC resolution should also authorize the ISF to assume full operational control over all crossing points into Gaza, including Rafah, Kerem Shalom, and Erez, with authority to inspect, approve, and facilitate all humanitarian and commercial flows. Such control is essential to the ISF’s mandate, as the ISF cannot function effectively if Israel retains veto power over the force’s own supply lines and humanitarian operations.
The UNSC resolution should ensure access for a ground investigation by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory (IOC) to document the full scope of atrocities in Gaza. The IOC, established by the U.N. Human Rights Council in May 2021, has an ongoing mandate to investigate violations and, in September 2025, concluded that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. Despite Israel’s ban on the IOC’s access to Gaza, the IOC has submitted 7,000 pieces of evidence to the International Criminal Court for its ongoing investigation into crimes in Palestine since 2014.
The Security Council should ensure the Commission has adequate resources, including forensic specialists in pathology, anthropology, odontology, and explosives analysis; DNA laboratories; and geospatial analysis capabilities. The investigators should have freedom of movement to document evidence of Israeli crimes, establish protected evidence zones at mass-casualty sites, hospitals, schools, shelters, and known or suspected graves, and create a secure central repository for material needed in future judicial proceedings.
“Gaza is an active crime scene where the UNSC has an opportunity to ensure that evidence of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity is preserved before it is destroyed forever,” said Raed Jarrar, DAWN’s advocacy director. “Accountability for Israeli crimes will bolster the credibility of international law as a viable tool for justice.”
Current plans to identify remains of victims in Gaza exclude any meaningful focus on Palestinian victims, prioritizing Israeli remains. The Trump-backed October 2025 ceasefire agreement established an international task force led by Israel, in cooperation with the United States, Egypt, Qatar, Turkey, and the Red Cross, to locate bodies of deceased Israeli captives and transfer remains for identification to Israel’s National Institute for Forensic Medicine.. Egyptian teams are currently operating in Gaza to help locate Israeli hostage remains. Turkish specialists, composed of an 81-member expert team with specialized excavation equipment, bulldozers, cranes, search dogs, and life-detection devices, have been waiting at the Egyptian border since October 17, 2025 to assist with body recovery, but Israel has blocked their entry. While at least 10,000 dead Palestinians remain under rubble in Gaza, the international community has not mobilized an equivalent task force, equipment, or resources for Palestinian families searching for their loved ones. The UNSC resolution should ensure that the task force devotes equal resources and dignity to recovering the remains of Palestinian victims.
“Palestinians are human beings too, and our families deserve the same dignity, the same urgency, and the same international support to recover and identify our loved ones as Israeli families receive,” said Jarrar. “There are over 10,000 dead Palestinians under the rubble in Gaza, yet the remains recovery mechanism has focused exclusively on Israeli victims while Palestinian families continue searching for loved ones without adequate equipment or international support.”
About DAWN:
DAWN is a dedicated group of analysts, researchers, lawyers, and activists who aim to fulfill Jamal Kashoggi’s vision of helping to promote democracy and human rights in the Middle East and North Africa.
