Palestinian and Israeli civil society representatives gathered in Paris on Friday have issued an urgent call to G7 leaders to act on Gaza at their upcoming summit in Évian-les-Bains, a French Alpine spa town, warning that the window for a two-state solution is rapidly closing. Around 250 activists, foreign ministers and senior officials from dozens of countries assembled for what was framed as a second international conference on the two-state solution, one year after the UN-backed New York Declaration set out a roadmap towards Palestinian statehood. The gathering concluded with an eight-point "Call for Action" to be delivered to G7 leaders when they meet from Monday.

The joint statement from Palestinian and Israeli NGOs painted a stark picture: "Gaza is devastated, Israel remains under threat. Settler violence, settlement expansion and de facto annexation and threats to the Palestinian Authority continue to undermine the viability of a future Palestinian state. Israelis and Palestinians alike remain trapped in fear, insecurity and trauma." Specific demands included a permanent monitored ceasefire, the disarmament of Hamas, meaningful consequences for settler violence, guaranteed humanitarian access, and a transparent multi-year reconstruction mechanism with genuine Palestinian ownership. The groups also called for Palestinian elections this year and for the Palestinian Authority to be properly funded, cautioning that its financial and political weakness risks deepening Hamas's entrenchment in Gaza.

A central theme was the need to bridge top-down diplomacy and grassroots civil society. John Lyndon, executive director of the Alliance for Middle East Peace — a coalition of more than 200 NGOs — argued that peace efforts had been "too elite-driven, too top-down, and increasingly removed from the lived reality of Israelis and Palestinians." EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, who attended the conference, reinforced this message, calling the two-state solution "the only viable path to lasting peace" and describing the pace of illegal settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank as "unprecedented." France's Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot told the assembled representatives that "France refuses to let the side of war prevail over the side of peace."

Not all participants shared equal optimism about the two-state framework itself. Amira Mousallam, a Palestinian co-founder of the organisation Unarmed Civilian Protection in Palestine, from the Bethlehem region of the West Bank, described a Palestinian state as feeling increasingly like a "dream" given the fragmentation of Palestinian territory by settlements. Mohammad Assira, who heads the NGO Rosana for health diplomacy, argued for greater clarity in the discourse, noting: "We are not trying to create two states — we are trying to create the second state, which is an independent Palestinian state."

The conference took place against a backdrop of stalled diplomacy. Progress toward a Gaza ceasefire and Palestinian self-rule has been frozen for six months, with both sides blaming the other for failing to meet conditions set out in Donald Trump's 20-point peace plan. A meeting of Palestinian factions in Cairo this week made limited headway on persuading Hamas to surrender its remaining heavy weaponry. Israel and the United States did not attend the Paris conference; the Israeli embassy stated it "has nothing to do with promoting peace." The prospects for any joint G7 statement on Gaza are described by diplomats as extremely slim, making the civil society call to action all the more urgent in the eyes of its signatories.