Urgent Appeal to the UN Women

Calling for an immediate cessation of genocide crimes in Gaza and rectifying its stance:

We, the undersigned from feminist and human rights organizations, express our deep resentment at the position taken by the UN Women in its response to the horrific crimes committed and still being committed by Israeli occupation forces against Palestinian women in Gaza. These acts have been described by experts and human rights activists as acts of genocide.

The statement of the UN Women, condemning unconfirmed allegations of sexual assault on October 7th, endorsing the Israeli narrative that has been proven false, and surrendering to Israeli criticism that condemned the UN Women's stance without allowing for an investigation into those unsubstantiated claims raises many questions. It questions the nature of the UN Women's mission, its independence from external pressures, and its ability to address the root causes of violence against women in our region. The UN Women ignores the impact of the occupation and its role, disregarding the victims among the martyred women, the prisoners, the injured, and the displaced women from their homes. Meanwhile, it remains silent on condemning documented cases of killing, violence, torture, and detention of Palestinian women.

The UN Women's affirmation in its statement that "all women, Israeli women, Palestinian women, like others, have the right to a safe life free from violence" can only be seen as complicity with the aggressor. Treating both sides as equal is neither objective nor accurate. It ignores the historical injustice committed against Palestinians over the past seventy-five years and overlooks the world's witnessing of more than a hundred days of continuous violence and crimes against Palestinians in Gaza, resulting in over thirty thousand martyrs, about a third of whom are women, and displacing more than a million and nine hundred thousand people. This compelled the Secretary-General of the United Nations to activate Article 99 of the UN Charter to address the situation in Gaza as a threat to world peace and security.

The systematic and ongoing violence against women committed by colonial powers over 75 years cannot be ignored or overlooked. The UN Women must recognize the persecution and discrimination faced by Palestinian women and acknowledge the gender dimensions of colonial occupation and its crimes, affecting women who have become targets of its war and subjected to its tools of oppression.

Therefore, we demand the following:

1. Call for an immediate ceasefire, take a clear and explicit stance against genocide crimes, and acknowledge the resulting damages and the ongoing catastrophe.
2. Recognize the systematic violence committed by the occupation authorities against Palestinian women and condemn the crimes of the occupation in Gaza and the West Bank.
3. Rectify the UN Women's position regarding "equality between parties"; adopting a narrative of equality between the oppressor and the oppressed is not neutral but a denial of the historical injustice suffered by Palestinian women and a denial of its consequences and effects.
4. Stop succumbing to Israeli pressures and/or adopting its misleading narrative. The statements of the UN Women should be based on facts and evidence, not on misleading claims and information.