self-determination. UN General Assembly resolution 79/81 acknowledged ‘the efforts being undertaken by civil society to promote respect for human rights and a peaceful settlement of the question of Palestine, stressing the need for the protection of civil society actors to allow them to conduct their work freely and without fear of attacks and harassment from any party, and rejecting any attack against civil society’. Palestinian civil society, working for progress across each of the thematic areas identified in the Conference roundtables, requires urgent protection from Israeli attacks, whether physical, administrative, or legalistic. The UN and international community must support the critical role of Palestinian local, regional, and international civil society in their human rights work particularly in the face of an ongoing and protracted smear campaign by Israel and its affiliated bodies targeting human rights defenders. Their targeting is intended to silence and repress Palestinian voices from the ground who advocate against Israeli impunity, including those who demand the full dismantling of the Israeli apartheid regime, and the right of return of Palestinian refugees. Al-Haq notes the planned emphasis on a proposed Peace Day effort, again an undefined, nebulous concept, which might be seen as signalling the very opposite of the enforcement of international law. As described by the European Union on 23 May 2025, the Peace Day Effort entails: ‘producing a peace-supporting package, with concrete input from all interested stakeholders, able to incentivize direct peace negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians. It builds on the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002, on pertinent UN resolutions and internationally agreed parameters.’ We caution against the failure to explicitly recognise that peace is On the Proposal for a July 2025 UN conference on a two-State solution for Israel and Palestine dependent on the enforcement of law and the enjoyment of human rights. Palestine recognises and commemorates Nakba Day, Land Day, Prisoners’ Day, Women’s Day. These occasions, reflecting and furthering the collective struggle for national liberation, will not cease. It is within, and for Palestinians to determine commemorative moments, or landmark initiatives. Such can neither be imposed, nor forced or manufactured, until the Palestinian people, with the solidarity of the global community of peoples, have the choice and freedom to determine that freedom has been attained. Once international law is enforced, and Israel ceases its genocidal conduct, dismantles its racist discriminatory apartheid regime on both sides of the Green Line, withdraws from unlawfully occupied territory, facilitates the right of return of refugees, and respects human rights, and when the Palestinian people have their destiny in their own hands and are in a position to exercise self-determination, then it will be appropriate for the UN to liaise with their representatives, again on the basis of international law, not least with regards to reparations and compensation owed, to negotiate on matters pertaining to subjects such as economics, development, and security. For the present Conference to make any contribution to peace it must ensure that the enforcement of international law is brought front and centre to all discussion and analysis. Israel’s conduct has exemplified a state which is operating outside the realm of law or accountability, as it continues to attack UN organs such as UNRWA, and ignore the Orders and Advisory Opinions of the International Court of Justice. To seek, as a matter of supposed political compromise, to sideline international law, would be to render the UN complicit in Israel’s violations, to fundamentally break the promise of the UN Charter, and to fuel only ever intensifying human carnage. 8