Children are dying of starvation in Gaza. Journalists are being murdered. Entire families are forced to huddle in overcrowded tents while international institutions issue statements Israel ignores. Yet something is shifting. As Israel’s campaign of genocide continues, people around the world are mobilising to demand an end to the slaughter. Previously supportive governments are starting to challenge Israel’s impunity. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, seemingly intent on permanent war, has just declared another phase of the onslaught.

Israel’s starvation campaign has reached devastating new depths. Its army is systematically shooting people as they approach the handful of permitted aid points, controlled by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a body supported only by the Israeli and US governments. The United Nations (UN) records that around 1,400 Palestinians have been killed while seeking food since 27 May, most of them at Gaza Humanitarian Foundation sites.

Israel’s assault on truth continues alongside the physical bombardment. The government dismisses all reports of human rights violations as ‘fake news’, insisting its victims are combatants and terrorists. Its determination to control the narrative is exemplified by its targeting of six journalists, including Anas al-Sharif and four colleagues from Al Jazeera, in a deadly 10 August airstrike. The Committee to Protect Journalists reports that 192 journalists have been killed since the current phase of conflict started with the 7 October 2023 Hamas attacks – making this the deadliest conflict for media workers on record.

A further escalation is underway. On 8 August, Israel’s security cabinet approved a plan for the military occupation and ethnic cleansing of Gaza City. As Israeli forces take control, its remaining inhabitants will be forced out into camps. Speculation continues about potential plans to fully occupy Gaza and force survivors to become refugees in other countries.

UN challenges

Israel’s blatant flouting of international law presents the international system with one of its biggest tests. Whatever international institutions do, Israel flatly rejects. Last year it banned UNRWA, the UN’s agency for Palestine. It ignores the rulings of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which ordered it to prevent genocide and found that its West Bank occupation breaches international law. It vilifies the International Criminal Court (ICC), which has issued arrest warrants against Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant. It unsuccessfully tried to have the warrants overturned, while the US government showed its support by imposing sanctions on the court’s lead official and four judges.

UN calls for peace continue to fall on deaf ears. In June, the General Assembly adopted its latest resolution calling for an immediate, unconditional and lasting ceasefire. But this was, as usual, not unanimous, with the USA backing Israel by voting against, joined by a few others including Argentina, Hungary and Paraguay. The non-enforceable resolution came days after the USA used its Security Council veto to block a resolution that would have carried more weight.

The UN’s independent human rights experts keep sounding the alarm. Recently, the special rapporteur on torture, Alice Edwards, called for unfettered aid delivery to end starvation. The special rapporteur on freedom of expression, Irene Khan, condemned the vilification of Anas al-Sharif prior to his killing. Many UN experts united to demand the immediate dismantling of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.

But they too face Israel’s fierce backlash. Israel and its allies have particularly attacked Francesca Albanese, Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, for consistently speaking out against Israel’s systematic human rights violations.

In July, Albanese published her latest report, on the economy of occupation and genocide. The report outlined the role of corporations in every facet of Israel’s assault on Gaza and its illegal occupation of Palestinian territories. Among those named are tech titans Amazon, Google, IBM, Microsoft and Palantir, defence companies such as Lockheed Martin, global banking corporations like Barclays and BNP Paribas, fossil fuel giants BP and Chevron and big investment companies BlackRock and Vanguard, which invest in many of the firms involved. The report suggests genocide is so lucrative for many corporations that they have no incentive to stop it.

Israel has continually called for Albanese to be removed from her post and has banned her from visiting Israel and Palestine. The Trump administration’s reaction to the report’s naming of many US corporations was to impose sanctions on Albanese, accusing her of ‘a campaign of political and economic warfare’ against Israel and the USA. It’s a highly unusual step that signals further normalisation of US attacks on global institutions and principles.

Diplomatic moves

In January, frustrated with international inaction, a group of global south states formed the Hague Group. The group’s name reflects a determination to uphold the rulings of the ICC and ICJ, both Hague-based institutions, on Israel and Palestine. Some 30 states took part in its July meeting in Bogotá, Colombia. There, 13 agreed to go further than the international community has managed so far, committing to stop transfers of arms and items with potential military use to Israel, prevent the docking of vessels carrying these supplies at their ports and ensure their country’s vessels aren’t used to supply Israel. They also agreed to review all public contracts to end any financial involvement with Israel and to support the principles of universal jurisdiction, under which states can prosecute perpetrators of serious crimes regardless of where they take place.

They’re calling for other states to join them by the annual high-level opening of the UN General Assembly in September. If momentum develops, the initiative could present a new means of focusing international pressure to challenge Israel’s impunity.

Momentum has also built on recognition of Palestinian statehood. States achieve full statehood when they achieve near-universal recognition among existing states. Of the current 193 UN member states, 147 recognise Palestine, but many from the global north don’t, including Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, South Korea and the USA. Ten more states have recognised Palestine since October 2023, including Ireland, Mexico, Norway, Spain and several Caribbean nations, while a May 2024 General Assembly resolution confirmed that Palestine met the criteria for membership.

Recently France said it will recognise Palestine at the September General Assembly session. As a permanent UN Security Council and G7 member, France’s decision carries particular weight. Its announcement was timed to focus pressure on other states to follow suit ahead of the General Assembly’s opening.

France and Saudi Arabia convened a UN conference on a two-state solution in late July, previously postponed due to Israel’s strikes on Iran. Several other states indicated in the declaration that they might also recognise Palestine, including Finland, New Zealand and Portugal. Following the meeting, Canada said it would also recognise Palestine at the General Assembly, subject to democratic reforms, including a commitment to hold a fresh election without Hamas participation. Australia has just joined in, with similar conditions.

The UK’s position is more ambiguous. Its government says it will recognise Palestine in September unless Israel agrees to conditions including a ceasefire, a long-term peace process, a two-state solution and an end to West Bank annexation. A government under pressure from many of its politicians and from public opinion has offered a contradictory compromise, since a two-state solution implies recognition of Palestine, while its stance effectively makes Israel the gatekeeper of Palestine’s statehood.

When people are being starved and bombed, the rituals of diplomacy seem particularly distant. But recognition communicates that states are prepared to go against Israel’s wishes. Close-to-universal recognition would open up a path for Palestine’s integration in the UN human rights system.

In practice, the USA’s Security Council veto stands in Palestine’s way, and Donald Trump has made his position clear by saying Canada’s announcement made a trade deal harder. But recognition still has symbolic power, because by recognising Palestine, states communicate that they support a two-state solution. At a time when Israel seems intent on annexing Gaza while undermining the West Bank’s territorial integrity through illegal occupations, to recognise Palestinian statehood is to make clear Israel can’t simply erase it.

Ground-up pressure

Pressure on states is building from the ground up. A growing section of the public, including in states that typically support Israel, simply can’t ignore the daily atrocities. Governments risk falling increasingly out of sync with public opinion. Almost three-quarters of respondents in a recent poll in Germany said they wanted their government to do more to pressure Israel about the humanitarian situation. Political leaders are having to give ground in response. The German government recently announced a ban on military equipment exports that could be used in Gaza.

Civil society is keeping up the pressure, extending far beyond the usual activist circles, as reflected in the estimated 90,000 people who marched across Sydney Harbour Bridge in Australia on 3 August, in a protest that only got last-minute approval after organisers went to court to overturn a police ban.

Protesters are also calling out the complicity of states and corporations, including those exposed in Albanese’s report. In August, activists in the Netherlands blocked access to a Microsoft data centre, highlighting the company’s role in Israel’s extensive surveillance.

But while states are hearing the pressure, they’re also suppressing protests. One of the worst examples has come in the UK, after activist group Palestine Action broke into an air-force base and sprayed paint on two planes to protest against UK military cooperation with Israel, which includes arms exports and surveillance support. The government charged those involved under the Terrorism Act and on 5 July proscribed Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation. This sends a signal to the broader activist community, which now have to extremely careful what they say, as sweeping anti-terrorism laws criminalise anyone who expresses support for a proscribed group, with potential jail sentences of up to 14 years.

Prominent civil society groups criticised the ban, including Amnesty International and Liberty, a national civil liberties watchdog. The UN’s human rights chief, Volker Türk, called the ban ‘disproportionate and unnecessary’. Palestine Action filed a legal challenge, and on 30 July the court agreed to review the decision.

Police have arrested hundreds of people on accusations of supporting Palestine Action, including over 500 people at a protest outside parliament on 10 August, many merely for holding signs reading ‘I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action’. Many of those arrested are older people with little history of activism, moved to act by the horrors in Gaza and the UK government’s disproportionate response to Palestine Action. There have also been examples of police overreach, including threats of arrest for merely holding up Palestinian flags.

The UK government should admit it’s wrong to conflate direct action with terrorism and reverse its ban. Around the world, governments should listen to civil society and do more to end Israel’s impunity for the immense suffering it’s causing – including by recognising the state of Palestine, ending military and financial cooperation and respecting the right of people to protest. The overcautious approaches taken so far have manifestly failed. With children dying of starvation and journalists being murdered with impunity, it’s surely time to push much harder.

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