Civil society leaders urge UN member states to act on Gaza ahead of UNGA

As the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) convenes, prominent voices from global civil society - including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and The Hague group - gathered on Thursday to call on the international community to “have courage” in confronting Israel’s continued violations.

Amnesty International’s secretary general, Agnes Callamard, presented a newly released report by the organisation, naming corporations complicit in aiding and abetting Israel’s genocide in Gaza and prolonged occupation of Palestine - including Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Palantir Technologies, and HD Hyundai. 

She stated that Amnesty is following a path that was paved by numerous organisations before, which aim to target the “global political economy of oppression”.

"We need to stop the global political economy that is sustaining Israel's crimes," Callamard told Middle East Eye.

Callamard called on civil society to mobilise to stop corporations, cities and universities from their "addiction to profit", which she said was an "addiction to genocide, to occupation, to apartheid".

"We need to name them. We need to shame them, and we need to take action.”

Callamard was speaking at a sideline event to the UNGA panel organised by the Arab Foundations Forum, where representatives from four major NGOs condemned Israel’s failure to comply with the UN’s 12-month deadline to end the occupation of Palestine.

On 18 September 2024, UNGA adopted a resolution that called on Israel to withdraw from occupied territory and for all states to take effective action against Israel’s violations of international law, including accountability, sanctions and cessation of support, within one year, fully implementing International Court of Justice provisional measures in the South Africa genocide case against Israel.

Each NGO outlined the steps it has taken to document Israel’s occupation and highlighted ongoing campaigns aimed at mobilising action and accountability.
 

We need to disrupt and we need to transform."

In an interview with Middle East Eye, Amnesty International’s secretary general Agnes Callamard said the rights group has released a report “denouncing the global political economy that is sustaining Israel’s international crimes”. pic.twitter.com/hZOnN4kS8t

— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) September 19, 2025

Move beyond words

In addition to her call for member states to boycott corporations with ties to Israel’s oppression of Palestinians, Callamard echoed the panel’s demand for the international community to offer more.

“Yes, they have been very good at making strong statements. Where the hell are the actions? The trades have continued. The economic relations have continued. They're trying to please the masses, because the last thing they want to see are the public in the street. But they have done, frankly, fuck all. They have done nothing to ensure that their trade relationship with Israel stopped.”

Palestine, she emphasised, is not just a western issue, but a global one.

Callamard said it was appropriate that a lot of the focus should be on the US and Europe, given their ties to Israel, but she added that the Arab world, Latin America and Asia also have a role to play.

"We are all confronting a real existentialist crisis, the possible demise of international law that banded us together, not perfectly, not totally, but for 80 years. Over the last 24 months, and possibly before that, we have seen a real U-turn. So it is much more than the United Nations. It's about who we are as a global community, who we want to be, what we want to give to our children and grandchildren."

Varsha Gandikota-Nellutla, executive secretary of The Hague Group, similarly acknowledged that the past two years have shown how existing multilateral and legal institutions “could not suffice in stopping the genocide”.

The only solution, she says, is for all UN members to band together as they have in The Hague Group, which is a bloc of states committed to “coordinated legal and diplomatic measures” in defence of international law and solidarity with the people of Palestine.

“We seem to be caught in this loop of definitions and evidence gathering going over and over, the same kind of legal clarity questions when what's missing is not an absence of legal clarity - but simply an absolute, it's an absence of courage,” Gandikota-Nellutla said. " How do we get courage? [It] comes from collective action."

So far, nine countries are in the bloc, which is set to make its first appearance at the UNGA on Monday.