The Global Disability Summit 2025 is censoring Gaza and Palestine: A Statement by the Disability Justice for Palestine Collective.

(February 24, 2025)--Since we released the open letter to break the silence on Palestinians with disabilities in Gaza last year, countless more Palestinians have been murdered, wounded and disabled by the Israeli Army. Thousands of children lost limbs, parents and siblings, and thousands of parents lost their children.

The collective Disability Justice for Palestine has countered the indifference of the disability rights community, bringing Palestine to the UN Conference of State Parties to the CRPD  and the CRPD Committee, collaborating with SR Albanese to include the testimonies of Palestinians with disability into her reporting, and demanding President Biden's action to protect Palestinians with disabilities. 

Last month, we accompanied the Palestinian Disability Coalition in submitting a side event to the 2025 Global Disability Summit, to be held in Berlin this coming April co-hosted by Germany, Jordan, and the International Disability Alliance (IDA). Centered around Palestinian testimonies of survival and resistance, the event “Taking Action for Disability Justice in Palestine” is organized in partnership with the Government of Spain, the Palestinian Authority, UN-ESCWA, the UN Special Rapporteur on the rights of persons with disabilities, Women Enabled International and several organizations of persons with disabilities.

Unfortunately, the event was rejected by the GDS hosts, and we have every reason to believe that Palestine was the cause of its rejection. Members of our collective were told by the organizers that the word “Genocide” would not be allowed at the GDS, nor “singling out Israel” for its crimes in Gaza and against the Palestinian people. This was explicitly conveyed by IDA, one of the 3 co-hosts.

We have seen the list of 23 side events approved by the organizers, and not one mentions Palestine or Gaza. On the other hand, they considered the situation of Ukrainians with disabilities as deserving not one but two events—the only events dedicated to persons with disabilities in conflict. 

It is unacceptable that one of the most blatant crimes of our time, against the entire community of Palestinians with disabilities, is excluded from the agenda of the most important global convening on disability inclusive development.

So together with the Palestinian Disability Coalition, we decided to go ahead with the event despite the rejection by GDS organizers. It will be fully virtual and will take place during the GDS week. And we need your help to organize and promote it. 

The disability community must learn from the resilience of Palestinians with disabilities, and their struggle for survival and liberation. If you plan to be at the GDS, we ask you to help us bring their plight into the discussions, joining the calls for humanitarian aid, but also for justice and accountability. Without solidarity with their fight for freedom, our support for those surviving the war against Palestine will be incomplete.

The Disability Justice for Palestine Collective.

Disability Justice in Palestine: Taking action

Organized by the Disability Justice for Palestine collective, and the Palestinian Disability Coalition, with support from Women Enabled International and Disability Divest.  

APRIL 15, 11h US Eastern (CST)/ 17h Central Europe (CET)/ 18h Palestine

Collective action is needed to support Palestinians with disabilities, as Israel continues its genocide and long-term settler-colonial occupation of Palestine. Our event will shed light on the situation of people with disabilities in Gaza and all over occupied Palestine, and on the crimes committed against them. It will be an opportunity to listen to their testimonies and insights, and discuss with allies actionable steps to support their struggle for survival and freedom.

Participants and organizers will discuss national and international political action to end the genocide and occupation in Palestine, emphasizing their devastating impact on people with disabilities. We are mobilizing grassroots movements and disability advocacy in support of Palestine, demanding that justice and accountability are prioritized by the international community.

Together, we urge governments, civil society, OPDs, and all humanitarian actors in Palestine to prioritize persons with disabilities in their operations, ensuring delivery of essential services, assistive devices, and community support across aid efforts, in line with the UN Convention on the rights of persons with disabilities, the Charter on Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities in Humanitarian Action and other international treaties.

Program of the event:

Moderator: Awad Abaiyat, Palestinian Disability Coalition

Opening remarks (5’): Heba Hagrass, UN Special Rapporteur on the rights of persons with disabilities.

Resisting Erasure: Disability Justice in Palestine (15’)

Speakers:

• Randa Rahim, Disability Justice for Palestine
• Shatha Abusrour, Palestinian Disability Coalition

Surviving Genocide: The Lived Reality of Persons with Disabilities in Gaza and the West Bank (40’)

Speakers:

• Jamal al Rozzi, Executive Director - National Rehabilitation Society in the Gaza Strip
• Mohammed al-Arabi
• Waleed Nazzal, Palestinian Union for the Deaf
• Kefah Abu Ghoush, Stars of Hope Society for Empowering Women with Disability

Mobilising Global Solidarity for Disability Justice in Palestine (10’)

Speaker: Marina Khaled Salman, Disability Justice for Palestine

Q & A (15’), and Closing Remarks

About the organizers:

The Palestinian Disability Coalition comprises 24 members, including organisations of persons with disabilities, self-help groups, and activists with disabilities from all parts of Occupied Palestine.

Disability Justice for Palestine is a collective of persons with disabilities, researchers, human rights activists and advocates from all over the world working together to document the situation of Palestinians with disabilities and the crimes being committed against them, and advocating for justice and accountability.

Letter and video to the UN CRPD Committee on Palestine

The collective sent a letter to the UN CRPD committee on the situation of persons with disabilities in Palestine, on September 6th, 2024, requesting urgent action regarding the critical human rights situation of persons with disabilities in Palestine and more intensively in Gaza.

You can download or read it below. 

Demand Biden Take Immediate Actions for Disabled Palestinians

Today marks the 10-day countdown to the 34th Anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). We refuse to celebrate this anniversary when the United States continues to use our tax dollars to fund Israel’s mass bombardment, expulsion, disablement, starvation, and genocide of the Palestinian people. Instead, we are using the ADA anniversary as a catalyst for immediate action for Palestinians with disabilities.

Along with the global movements for a Free Palestine, we explicitly demand that the Biden Administration pressure Israel to eliminate the “dual use” designation for assistive technology, devices, and medication. Israel must allow this technology and medication to reach Palestinians into Gaza immediately. The US must ensure disability-led, inclusive aid and reconstruction efforts are prioritized.

Join disabled people and our allies to demand that President Biden take immediate action for Palestinians with disabilities.

1. Sign the Letter to Biden (as an individual and/or organization/group);
2. Share this 10-day sign-on campaign with via social media or email;
3. Educate yourself and your communities with the letter's appendix;

This letter and all of its signatories will be delivered to President Biden on July 26th, the ADA anniversary.

Key Links

• Link to read the Letter to Biden: Immediate Demands for Disabled Palestinians 
• Link to sign the Letter to Biden
• Link for Appendix of the Letter to Biden: Immediate Demands for Disabled Palestinians 
• Link for social media & email outreach kit

Submission to the UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories: The situation of Palestinian with disabilities.

By the Palestinan Disability Coalition and the Collective for breaking the silence on Palestinian with disabilities.

This report addresses the situation of persons with disabilities in the occupied Palestinian territories in the current conflict, and the broader context of Israeli settler-colonialism. Besides the growing number of people becoming disabled due to targeted disablement and other attacks by Israeli occupation forces, people who had disabilities pre-October 2023 are experiencing human rights violations which target and potentially exacerbate their disability.

The experience of disablement has given rise to human rights violations related to rights to freedom from violence, torture and ill-treatment, to life and health, as well as specific humanitarian aid needs. It also creates the conditions for lifelong human rights violations well beyond the disabling event, because people with disability are at higher risks of human rights violations across their lives. Disablement of individuals and debilitation of the population can reduce their capacity to physically resist occupation, and in turn to assert their human rights.

Persons with disabilities are an integral part of every society and the struggles, violations and disproportionate and targeted attacks experienced by Palestinians with disabilities serve to shed more light on the all-encompassing nature of the genocidal war. The report is basaed on testimonies of persons with disabilities in Gaza and the West Bank, presented in the webinar Bearing witness: Palestinians with disabilities on their situation in the occupied Palestinian territories, including Gaza, held with members of the Palestinian Disability Coalition and other activists.

Bearing witness: Palestinians with disabilities on their situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, including Gaza.

Monday 10 June 2024, 8 am EDT / 2 pm CEST/ 3pm Palestine