APN | Istanbul

5– 8 December 2025

APN Chairperson Razan Zuayter warned that the crime of ecocide is being inflicted in Gaza alongside the genocide against its people, during her address at the “Covenant for Jerusalem” Conference, held in Istanbul from 5–8 December 2025. She affirmed that the systematic destruction of the environment and food systems has become an integral component of the war machinery.

Zuayter stated that the intense bombardment of Gaza employed explosive force exceeding thirteen times that of the Hiroshima bomb, generating emissions equivalent to those of 25 countries combined. This has led to the destruction of 98% of agricultural land and losses estimated at nearly five billion dollars, affecting crop and livestock production, fisheries, and water infrastructure. She added that the ban on the entry of seeds is intended to “kill life in both the present and the future”.

She noted that the targeting of Gaza’s agricultural sector is not new, having been repeated during every assault over the past two decades, stressing that international organisations were fully aware of this reality despite their silence. Zuayter criticised the international legal system as a structure crafted by the victors of World War II to entrench colonial power, asking how the occupying entity was admitted to the United Nations just one year after carrying out the ethnic cleansing of 750,000 Palestinians and the destruction of 530 villages.

Zuayter also addressed the United States’ use of 51 vetoes to shield the occupation from accountability, arguing that Western “existential anxiety” has become a pretext for denying Palestinians their right to self-determination. She condemned recent so-called “peace” plans that repackage genocide in the language of “coexistence” and “tolerance”, as though the victim was responsible for the crime.

She praised the growing global awakening and the positions taken by states and peoples standing with Palestine - from South Africa, Colombia, and Venezuela to student movements, dock workers, and the Freedom Flotilla. Zuayter also commended farmers in Gaza who, in partnership with APN, succeeded in producing more than seven million kilograms of vegetables despite siege and starvation.

Zuayter called for the adoption of people’s justice as a parallel path to official mechanisms, stressing the need to strengthen international alliances, escalate pressure and boycott campaigns, and launch new public people’s tribunals. She also called for a global campaign against ecocide and starvation to be adopted by Al-Quds International Institution.

She concluded by asserting that every soul, every discipline, every institution, and every community constitutes a front of resistance, declaring: “Either we resist, or we surrender and are annihilated - there is no third option”.