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Defending Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories
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- Context
- Expansion of Settlements
- The Wall
- Internal Closure
- The incarceration of Gaza
- Recommendations
KAIROS is gravely concerned about the serious violations of human
rights and humanitarian law committed by Government of Israel in
the Occupied Palestinian Territories of the West Bank, Gaza Strip
and East Jerusalem. Israel’s failure to respond to the United
Nations Secretary General on the question of its implementation
of UNCHR resolutions 2004/3, 2004/8 and 2004/10 is symptomatic of
Israel’s repudiation of its legal and moral obligations as
an occupying power and its defiance of international human rights
and humanitarian law.
KAIROS is additionally concerned about the absence of human rights norms and a dedicated human rights monitoring mechanism in any peace negotiation framework. The “Quartet” roadmap, which was adopted by UN Security Council Resolution 1515 (2003) fails to reference human rights standards or monitoring mechanisms. The ceasefire agreement reached in Sharm al-Sheikh in February 2005 was also devoid of human rights content.
Context
The period of 2004 and early 2005 witnessed important developments
which present the international community with opportunities to
renew its hopes and efforts for a peaceful settlement to the Israeli
Palestinian conflict. The successful implementation of the Palestinian
Authority’s presidential and municipal elections, and Mahmoud
Abbas’s vociferous efforts to de-militarize the intifada and
to hold militant groups to the ceasefire agreement signed with Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon in Sharm-el-Shiekh on February 8, 2005, have
resulted in some improvements in the human rights situation in the
occupied territories. Israel released 500 Palestinian prisoners
and allowed the return of 45 deported Palestinians back to the West
Bank. Israel has thus far discontinued its policies of targeted
assassinations and punitive house demolition.
Important as these developments may be, they “fail to address the main violations of human rights and humanitarian law in the occupied Palestinian territories – settlements, the Wall, checkpoint and roadblocks, the imprisonment of Gaza and the continued incarceration of over 7,000 Palestinians,” according to the mission report of the Special Rapporteur of the UNCHR of March 3, 2005.
Expansion of Settlements
Israel’s settlement activities are expanding the number of
illegal settlements on occupied Palestinian land and encouraging,
through tax incentives, the transfer of more than 400,000 Israeli
Jewish civilians into an armed settler population living in some
144 settlements. Israeli-only bypass roads and highways link these
settlements together and integrate them into the Israeli transport
system and the Trans-Israeli Highway.
These settlements crisscross the territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, creating a territory-wide network of segregation. Needless to say, Palestinians are not allowed to use these roads and are forced to take convoluted routes, negotiating numerous Israeli military checkpoints and roadblocks. Israeli settlement activities are effectively fragmenting the occupied territories, rendering a territorially contiguous Palestinian state impossible.
Top
of pageThe Wall
The Wall, which Israel continues to construct in violation of international
law, is being built mainly on occupied Palestinian land, engulfing
some of the largest settlement blocs on the western slopes of the
West Bank hills and the western mountain deep aquifer. With its
unabated construction of the barrier on occupied Palestinian land,
Israel is illegally and unilaterally imposing new facts on the ground
and creating a new de facto border between Israel and the future
Palestinian state. This de facto border departs radically from international
law and consensus that stipulate that the 1949 Armistice Line in
the West Bank (Green Line) is the starting point for negotiations
on boundaries and territory. If Israel wishes to build such a Wall
then it must be built within its own territory and not inside occupied
Palestinian land.
The Wall is significantly altering the character of Jerusalem and Bethlehem. The lives of their residents are substantially affected by travel restrictions, closures and property confiscation.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz recently reported that on July 8, 2004, the Sharon cabinet met and adopted a resolution to reactivate the Absentee Property Law of 1950 and to expand and validate the power of the Custodian of Absentee Property for Palestinian assets in East Jerusalem. This resolution allows the State of Israel to seize large tracts of East Jerusalem land owned by Palestinians whose homes are cut off by the Wall from the rest of their properties in East Jerusalem. Finding themselves on the West Bank side of the barrier, and hence outside the municipal boundaries of Jerusalem and the jurisdiction of the State of Israel, these Palestinians are barred from accessing their land in East Jerusalem without a permit and are now deemed absentee.
The law stipulates that these Palestinians will no longer hold any property rights and that their properties will be transferred to the State of Israel with no possibility of appeal or compensation. This, despite the fact that these same Palestinians have been paying property taxes to the Municipal Jerusalem since 1967, the year that East Jerusalem was unilaterally annexed to Israel and became with West Jerusalem part of municipal Jerusalem.
Internal Closure
Israel’s policy of internal closure is severally curtailing
freedom of movement for Palestinians. In the West Bank alone there
are more than 700 Israeli military checkpoints and roadblocks. These
checkpoints and roadblocks are administered in a humiliating manner
and cause suffering and inconvenience to every Palestinian. In his
report of December 7, 2004, the Special Rapporteur compared the
restrictions on freedom of movement imposed by the Israeli authorities
on Palestinians to the notorious “pass Laws” of apartheid
South Africa.
Furthermore, Israel’s policy of internal closure is further threatening the economic viability of the future Palestinian state. According to the World Bank Report of November 2004, these policies are intensifying the cycle of Palestinian economic and resource dependency on Israel, strangling trade and commerce as well as fuelling Palestinian poverty and its acceleration into a humanitarian crisis.
The living conditions of Palestinians are dramatically deteriorating, with as much as half the population of Gaza dependent on food aid and almost 84% living below the poverty line. In the West Bank and Gaza, recipients of UNRWA food aid rose from 11,000 families before 2000 to almost 220,000 families in 2003: as many as 600,000 Palestinians are facing subsistence poverty. With per day expenditure of less than $1.5 per person, these people cannot meet their most basic needs in food, clothing and shelter to survive.
International donors played a critical role in helping Palestinian society endure this economic crisis. International aid helped to sustain social service delivery and support the poor through food, cash support and job creation. Without these programs, the World Bank Report estimates that an additional 250,000 persons would have fallen under the subsistence poverty line.
The incarceration of Gaza
The inhabitants of Gaza are effectively imprisoned by a combination
of wall, fence and sea. Gaza borders are rigorously patrolled by
the IDF and passage in and out of Gaza is strictly controlled. The
overwhelming majority of Gaza residents are confined within its
borders. Within Gaza, roadblocks restrict freedom of movement and
Gaza is effectively divided into two by the Abu Houli checkpoint.
The Israeli Knesset has adopted Sharon’s Disengagement Plan. Under the plan, Israel will withdraw all of its Gaza settlers and the troops protecting them. Israel is portraying its “disengagement” as the end to its military occupation of Gaza. In fact, Israel will maintain ultimate control over Gaza’s borders, coastline and airspace. Gaza will not be free from Israeli control and Israel must he held accountable to its obligations under international humanitarian law as an occupying power to provide for the humanitarian welfare and protection of civilians in Gaza
Sharon’s disengagement plan marks the first time in the history of Israel when the government has voted on the principle of removing settlers from occupied Palestinian land. To this extent, it should be supported so long as it represents a fulfillment of Israel’s obligations to evacuate all of its settler population, and to dismantle all of its settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
There is no indication, however, that Prime Minister Sharon intends for the evacuation and dismantling of the Gaza settlements to be a first step toward dismantling more than a handful of smaller settlements in the West Bank. The announcement of new housing construction in the West Bank strongly indicates that the Sharon government’s long-term intention is to solidify its hold over the West Bank. Sharon’s vision seems to be “Gaza only” and not “Gaza first”.
Recommendations
Bearing in mind Israel’s obligations as a High Contracting
Party to the Geneva Conventions,
- express grave concern about the serious violations of human rights and humanitarian law committed by the Government of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territories of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem;
- remain committed to the stated priorities of our foreign policy on the Middle East peace process and to act on these priorities in its bilateral relations with Israel; and
- ensure that human rights norms and a dedicated human rights
monitoring mechanism are referenced in any peace negotiation framework.
- condemn systematic violations of international humanitarian and human rights law by Government of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territories of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem;
- condemn the harmful impact of the separation barrier’s route on Palestinian human rights to access to work, family life, water, education, health, and freedom of movement;
- demand an investigation into the barrier’s violation of Article 55 of the 1907 Hague Regulations, which prohibits making permanent changes to occupied territory that do not benefit the protected population;
- call on Israel to end all settlement activities on lands occupied in 1967 as a violation of customary international law, Article 49 (6) of the Fourth Geneva Convention, and human rights law; and
- call for the inclusion of human rights norms and a dedicated human rights monitoring mechanism in all peace negotiation frameworks.
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