Riyad Mansour, Permanent Observer of the State of Palestine to the United Nations, delivered a speech during the Emergency Meeting of the Security Council on the Situation in the Middle East, including the Palestine Question.

Below is the full statement of Permanent Observer of the State of Palestine to the United Nations.
"Mr. President,
As we gather here – for the tenth month in a row – to advance a ceasefire to save human lives, Israel continues taking human lives and every action possible to spread a wildfire across the Middle East.
As we sit here on the 75th anniversary of the Geneva Conventions that were birthed in the ruins of entire cities, in the mass and indiscriminate killing of civilians, in the death chambers, in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as a pledge that the light will emerge out of the darkest night and protect the dignity and humanity of all persons caught in armed conflict, Israel is tearing the Conventions apart in Gaza along with every rule humanity has ever elaborated.
As we meet here in New York, there are Israeli government and military officials, pundits and analysts, explaining seriously that they are entitled to carry out indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks against the Palestinian civilian population, to wage war against civilians. They explain that starvation is a legitimate weapon of war. They justify gang rape and torture against defenseless prisoners as a required deterrent. And this is not a theoretical exercise, this is what Israel is imposing against millions of Palestinians, no man, woman or child spared.
You demand Israel to stop killing civilians, but it targets them in their shelters and tents. You demand Israel to allow food and medicine in, but it ensures that famine and diseases spread. You demand Israel to treat Palestinian prisoners humanely, but it tortures them and allows the Israeli jailers to rape and abuse their Palestinian hostages. You call on it to stop its settlements, but it rabidly accelerates its colonization of Palestinian land. You urge Israel to uphold the historic status quo at the holy sites, but its ministers and settlers desecrate the Haram Al-Sharif each time more openly and provocatively.
So let me state the obvious:
Israel does not care about your condemnations. It dismisses your resolutions. It does not even listen to your debates. As countries, as a Security Council, you had a responsibility to act months ago to stop this impunity. As the genocide continues, you have a responsibility to react – to save human lives and preserve the foundations for peace and security for all, not just for some.
Israel is a rogue State, with a rotten government due to the unbridled impunity it has enjoyed so far. I have no doubt that the tides will turn, and we will not be deterred in making sure no one can act as if Palestinian lives are worthless. But Palestinians in Gaza cannot wait for the tide to turn. Their agony must stop now, right now.
They wonder if you see them. Do you ever think what if you were born in Gaza? What if the prisoner raped was your son? What if the children starving to death were your own? What if that woman killed was your daughter or your wife. What if the disease was riddling the body of your mother, your grandmother? What if that family that was blown into pieces or burnt to death was yours, killed in cold blood after running in desperation and hunger for months to survive?
Just consider for one moment the sheer agony and despair that our people have suffered all these long months of deprivation and devastation lashed upon them while the world watched and left them to suffer, starve and die.
Mr. President,
While we acknowledge and welcome the international consensus that has long called for an immediate ceasefire, clearly Israel has retained a veto right over that prospect. This must be brought to an end; Israel cannot continue to defy the world and every rule of humankind.
It is not a coincidence. Every time the world pushes for a ceasefire, Israel responds with a massacre. It sends a message – each more gruesome than the one before – that it will not stop.
But, there is no right to commit genocide, absolutely no right. And we warn all those contributing directly or indirectly to the emergence of such a right. There is nothing that can justify Israeli actions. And don’t anyone dare say this is about the hostages. It became apparent long ago that this Israeli government could care less about them. The hostages know it, their families know it, you know it. Israel is killing them, abandoning them, playing with their lives. Netanyahu has other priorities, self-serving ones, maniacal ones.
Something terrible is happening in Israel, something that has made justifying genocide, famine and gang rape mainstream ideology. Something horrific is happening. The memory of the Holocaust, instead of serving as an un-breachable barrier against the commission of atrocities, has been instrumentalized to justify their commission.
How is this possible, 10 months later, with the whole world opposed to it? Because that opposition has yet to lead to serious consequences for Israel. This is a hard fact.
To those who continue to arm Israel; to those who still have the audacity to call on Israel “to investigate” its own crimes as if the actions of its soldiers do not reflect the actual policies of its military and political leaders; to those who dare to try and deter international courts from ensuring accountability instead of deterring the perpetrators of atrocities: Wake Up. Stop finding excuses. Stop imagining that you can reason with the Israeli government so it stops killing civilians by the thousands, imposing famine, torturing prisoners, colonizing and annexing our land. All while you appeal to them, call on them, demand them to stop.
You have to decide, what do you stand for and what do you stand against. This is not a time for justifications and equivocations. This is a time for clarity and resolve. This is time to shore up principles and morality. Do not abandon your duties.
Mr. President,
When will the Israeli government be held accountable for its actions? When will the war criminals be sanctioned?
We reject a position whereby you would be against hostage taking, except when the hostages are Palestinians, and whereby you would sanction war criminals, except when they are Israelis.
We cannot come back here over and over again and pretend that everyone does not all know that Israel will not listen until it has no choice but to listen, until there are consequences for its crimes.
Palestinians are exhausted, surrounded by death and endless horrors, and they know your words are no match for the bombs and bullets taking away their lives and limbs. But words are not all this Council has. Words are not the only tool your countries have. Some have gone beyond words. They are too rare. This is a time to act. And you will be judged not only for the eloquence of your speeches but also, and more importantly, for the courage of your actions.
Mr. President,
We don’t want Israel to torture our prisoners a bit less; we want to see them free. We don’t want Israel to make its occupation a bit less brutal; we want to see it end. Our people deserve freedom. The International Court of Justice has been unequivocal in its determination that, and I quote, “The sustained abuse by Israel of its position as an occupying Power, through annexation and an assertion of permanent control over the Occupied Palestinian Territory and continued frustration of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, violates fundamental principles of international law and renders Israel’s presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory unlawful”.
This illegal occupation and all the illegal, inhumane, racist and destructive policies that flow from it must end.
The Palestinian people will not disappear and they will not surrender. They will not relinquish their legitimate aspiration to live in freedom and dignity in their ancestral land. I urge the Security Council to act. And in the coming days we will go to the General Assembly to make sure that it upholds its Charter responsibilities, to make sure that the determinations of the highest court in the world, the ICJ, is translated into political will and momentum, into concrete actions to be pursued by the UN and its Member States. To make protect civilian life, to preserve and pursue peace and security.
Dag Hammarskjöld once stated: “It has been said that the United Nations was not created in order to bring us to heaven, but in order to save us from hell”.
History will remember that Palestinians were left to endure hell.
Now the fire they have painfully endured for almost a year is spreading to devour everything around. There is only one way to stop a man-made fire, it is not enough to tend to the flames, you need to stop the arsonist. Enough is enough.