A brief look at human rights violations: (part 7) Israel

The Israeli government continued to enforce severe and discriminatory restrictions on Palestinians’ human rights; restrict the movement of people and goods into and out of the Gaza Strip; and facilitate the unlawful transfer of Israeli citizens to settlements in the occupied West Bank. In this report, we will quote some of the human rights violations by the Israeli government, from various reports and news released in 2018.

1- According to the 2018 Annual Report on Human Rights Abuses in the Occupied Territories by Amnesty International: Israel’s illegal air, land and sea blockade of the Gaza Strip entered its 11th year, continuing the long-standing restrictions on the movement of people and goods into and from the area, collectively punishing Gaza’s entire population. Israel’s blockade triggered a humanitarian crisis with electricity cuts reducing access to electricity from an average of eight hours per day down to as little as two to four hours, affecting clean water and sanitation and diminishing health service access, and rendering Gaza increasingly “unlivable” according to the UN.

2- on 27 April, Amnesty International revealed that “Israel is carrying out a murderous assault against protesting Palestinians, with its armed forces killing and maiming demonstrators who pose no imminent threat to them”. The Israeli military has killed 35 Palestinians and injured more than 5,500 others. The organization has renewed its call on governments worldwide to impose a comprehensive arms embargo on Israel following the country’s disproportionate response to mass demonstrations along the fence that separates the Gaza Strip from Israel.

3- On 14 May, responding to reports that dozens of Palestinians have been killed and hundreds injured by the Israeli military during protests along the fence that separates Gaza and Israel, Philip Luther, Research and Advocacy Director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International, said: “This is another horrific example of the Israeli military using excessive force and live ammunition in a totally deplorable way. This is a violation of international standards, in some instances committing what appear to be willful killings constituting war crimes.”
“Unless Israel ensures effective and independent investigations resulting in criminal prosecutions of those responsible, the International Criminal Court must open a formal investigation into these killings and serious injuries as possible war crimes and ensure that perpetrators are brought to justice.” said Magdalena Mughrabi, deputy Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International.

4- According to Human Rights Watch world report 2018:

- Israel continued to maintain its decade-long effective closure of Gaza, exacerbated by Egypt’s keeping its own border with Gaza largely sealed, and to impose restrictions that limit supply of electricity and water, restrict access to medical care and educational and economic opportunity, and perpetuate poverty. Approximately 70 percent of Gaza’s 1.9 million people rely on humanitarian assistance.

- Israeli restrictions on the delivery of construction materials to Gaza and a lack of funding have impeded reconstruction of the 17,800 housing units severely damaged or destroyed during Israel’s 2014 military operation in Gaza. About 29,000 people who lost their homes remain displaced.

- Building permits are difficult, if not impossible, for Palestinians to obtain in East Jerusalem or in the 60 percent of the West Bank under exclusive Israeli control (Area C). This has driven Palestinians to construct housing and business structures that are at constant risk of demolition or confiscation by Israel on the grounds of being unauthorized. At least 381 Palestinian homes and other properties demolished in the West Bank.
Palestinian Bedouin citizens of Israel who live in “unrecognized” villages in the Negev suffered discriminatory home demolitions on the basis that their homes were built illegally, even though most of those villages existed before the state of Israel was established or were created in the 1950s on land to which Israel transferred Bedouin citizens.

- Israel continued construction of the separation barrier, 85 percent of which falls within the West Bank rather than along the Green Line separating Israeli from Palestinian territory, cutting off Palestinians from their agricultural lands and isolating 11,000 Palestinians on the western side of the barrier who are not allowed to travel to Israel and must cross the barrier to access their own property as well as services in the West Bank.

- Israeli military authorities detained Palestinian protesters, including those who advocated nonviolent protest against Israeli settlements and the route of the separation barrier. Israeli security forces arrested Palestinian children suspected of criminal offenses, usually stone-throwing, often using unnecessary force, questioned them without a family member present, and made them sign confessions in Hebrew, which most did not understand.

5- According to the statement by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein to the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People in July 2018:
- Palestinians living in Gaza regularly endure waves of violence which compound the already extreme humanitarian crisis. Skyrocketing unemployment and poverty, crumbling infrastructure, record food-dependency and a bleak political horizon are together creating massive, devastating and multifaceted deprivation which is entirely man-made and entirely preventable.

- The approval, planning and construction of Israeli settlements continues unabated across the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem. Since the beginning of 2018, settler attacks on Palestinians have spiked to the highest monthly average of the past three years.

- Hundreds of Palestinian children have been detained by Israel – some without charge, under the so called "administrative detention" system, which constitutes a fundamental human rights violation. It should be absolutely clear that international law requires detention only be used for children as a last resort. An estimated 440 Palestinians are being held in "administrative detention," according to the latest figures; Israel should immediately charge, or release, all of them.

6- In September 2018, the European Parliament passed a resolution condemning the impending demolition, warning that Israel would be committing a grave breach of international law if it destroyed the Khan al-ahmar village (area C). The demolition has also been called a war crime by rights groups such as B’Tselem.
- “Forcing the transfer of a protected community would be a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention, and could amount to a war crime under the 1998 Rome Statute,” said Michael Lynk, the UN Special Rapporteur for the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967. “Many more Palestinian communities in Area C are at risk in the near future of forcible transfer. Within the E1 area alone, there are 17 other Bedouin communities which face the same coercive environment, and the same fate as Khan al-Ahmar.”

Photo