Date: 14 October 2025
We, the undersigned human rights and humanitarian organizations, address this urgent appeal to express our deep concern over the continued practice by the Israeli occupation authorities of the crime of enforced disappearance against thousands of Palestinian detainees — a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law and international human rights law.
Since the outbreak of the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip in October 2023, there has been an unprecedented escalation in arbitrary arrests, torture, and enforced disappearances targeting hundreds of civilians, including women, children, the elderly, and workers in the medical and humanitarian fields.
To this day, the Israeli occupation authorities have failed to disclose the whereabouts of hundreds of detainees whose families have lost all contact with them since their arrest, and have denied access to lawyers and international organizations — including the International Committee of the Red Cross — to visit them or monitor their conditions. Recently released Palestinian detainees, freed under the framework of the ceasefire and prisoner exchange agreement, have reported the presence of hundreds of Palestinians held in secret detention centers where they are subjected to torture and ill-treatment.
These practices constitute a fully-fledged crime of enforced disappearance under the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (2006), and a crime against humanity under Article 7 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, as they are committed within the context of a widespread and systematic attack targeting Palestinian civilians.
Accordingly, we call upon the international community — in particular the United Nations, the Human Rights Council, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), and the International Criminal Court (ICC) — to:
- Establish an independent international commission of inquiry under the supervision of the UN Human Rights Council to investigate documented cases of enforced disappearance and torture.
- Compel the Israeli occupation authorities to immediately disclose the whereabouts of all detainees and forcibly disappeared persons, and ensure their contact with families and legal representatives.
- Enable the International Committee of the Red Cross and humanitarian organizations to visit all detention sites without restrictions.
- Hold Israeli political and military officials accountable for these crimes before the International Criminal Court.
The continued silence of the international community in the face of this ongoing crime constitutes indirect complicity, perpetuates a culture of impunity, and emboldens the occupation to persist in its crimes against the Palestinian people.
With sincere thanks and respect,
Geneva Center for Democracy and Human Rights
The International Justice Forum – Istanbul
International Union of Jurists – Geneva