4 feb 2020
The German multinational HeidelbergCement is complicit in the pillaging of natural resources from the Nahal Raba quarry in the occupied West Bank, with serious human and environmental rights violations against Palestinians, a new report by the Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO) and Al-Haq shows.
Palestinian communities are affected by land grabbing, stealing of natural resources, and dust pollution as a resulted of HeidelbergCement’s activities.
The company is breaching international law in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian Territory, while avoiding responsibility for the violations it has been involved in, said the two rights groups in a press release.
For more than 13 years, the Nahal Raba quarry, located in Salfit in the West Bank, has denied Palestinian communities’ access to their lands and sources of livelihoods.
Moreover, Hanson Israel, the subsidiary of HeidelbergCement operating the quarry, sold products from the quarry to illegal Israeli settlements.
The German multinational also pays royalties to the Israeli Civil Administration, the body administering the occupied Palestinian territory.
HeidelbergCement’s presence in the area is a clear example of multinational corporations’ involvement in Israel’s prolonged occupation, systemic human rights abuses and the denial of the fundamental right to self-determination and sovereignty over natural resources, said SOMO and Al-Haq.
While the German multinational and the State of Israel pocket the profits of depleting the quarry’s 'white gold’, the Palestinian economy is stripped of millions of dollars annually in this sector, they added.
In addition, according to several testimonies, the crushing of stones in the quarry, day and night, comes with loud explosions and covers parts of the neighboring communities of al-Zawiya and Rafat with dust, affecting crops and air quality.
Maha Abdallah, from Al-Haq, said, “HeidelbergCement should immediately and responsibly cease all its activities on appropriated Palestinian land and in illegal Israeli settlements, and make reparations to Palestinians affected, including to those whose lands it has - in conjunction with the occupation authorities, unlawfully exploited”.
HeidelbergCement has seemingly deployed a number of strategies to avoid responsibility for its involvement in these human rights violations and grave breaches of international law. The company denies that its operations are on unlawfully confiscated land and hides behind policies and measures imposed by the Occupying Power for the confiscation and exploitation of Palestinian land and natural resources.
The company has structured its transnational corporate group into distinct legal entities and carried out its operations through an Israeli subsidiary which separates a corporation from its owner, thus insulating the parent company from liability. Furthermore, HeidelbergCement continuously tries to legitimize its operations in Nahal Raba with false claims about job opportunities and benefits for Palestinians.
Lydia de Leeuw, from SOMO, said: “The behavior of HeidelbergCement is not unique. Worldwide we see companies using strategies to avoid responsibility or being held accountable for human rights abuses and environmental damage.
We want to motivate duty bearers to close the governance gaps that allow these strategies to be applied.”
Palestinian communities are affected by land grabbing, stealing of natural resources, and dust pollution as a resulted of HeidelbergCement’s activities.
The company is breaching international law in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian Territory, while avoiding responsibility for the violations it has been involved in, said the two rights groups in a press release.
For more than 13 years, the Nahal Raba quarry, located in Salfit in the West Bank, has denied Palestinian communities’ access to their lands and sources of livelihoods.
Moreover, Hanson Israel, the subsidiary of HeidelbergCement operating the quarry, sold products from the quarry to illegal Israeli settlements.
The German multinational also pays royalties to the Israeli Civil Administration, the body administering the occupied Palestinian territory.
HeidelbergCement’s presence in the area is a clear example of multinational corporations’ involvement in Israel’s prolonged occupation, systemic human rights abuses and the denial of the fundamental right to self-determination and sovereignty over natural resources, said SOMO and Al-Haq.
While the German multinational and the State of Israel pocket the profits of depleting the quarry’s 'white gold’, the Palestinian economy is stripped of millions of dollars annually in this sector, they added.
In addition, according to several testimonies, the crushing of stones in the quarry, day and night, comes with loud explosions and covers parts of the neighboring communities of al-Zawiya and Rafat with dust, affecting crops and air quality.
Maha Abdallah, from Al-Haq, said, “HeidelbergCement should immediately and responsibly cease all its activities on appropriated Palestinian land and in illegal Israeli settlements, and make reparations to Palestinians affected, including to those whose lands it has - in conjunction with the occupation authorities, unlawfully exploited”.
HeidelbergCement has seemingly deployed a number of strategies to avoid responsibility for its involvement in these human rights violations and grave breaches of international law. The company denies that its operations are on unlawfully confiscated land and hides behind policies and measures imposed by the Occupying Power for the confiscation and exploitation of Palestinian land and natural resources.
The company has structured its transnational corporate group into distinct legal entities and carried out its operations through an Israeli subsidiary which separates a corporation from its owner, thus insulating the parent company from liability. Furthermore, HeidelbergCement continuously tries to legitimize its operations in Nahal Raba with false claims about job opportunities and benefits for Palestinians.
Lydia de Leeuw, from SOMO, said: “The behavior of HeidelbergCement is not unique. Worldwide we see companies using strategies to avoid responsibility or being held accountable for human rights abuses and environmental damage.
We want to motivate duty bearers to close the governance gaps that allow these strategies to be applied.”
1 feb 2020
Out of a total of 242 (132 male; 110 female), or 11% of the total of Gaza patients’ applications for an Israeli army permit to cross Erez/Beit Hanoun for treatment outside the besieged Gaza Strip, but mainly in West Bank or East Jerusalem hospitals, who were denied a permit 55 were for children under 18 years and 18 were for patients aged 60 years or older and a quarter of them were cancer patients, according to the monthly World Health Organization’s (WHO) patient referral report.
It said that a quarter (25%) of denied applications were for appointments in oncology, 10% for orthopedics, 9% for cardiology, and 7% each for internal medicine, ophthalmology, urology, pediatrics, and hematology.
It explained that 88% of denied permit applications were for appointments at hospitals in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and 12% were for Israeli hospitals.
WHO said there were 2,198 patient applications submitted to Israeli authorities to cross Erez for healthcare in December: A third (34%) were for children under 18 and 16% were for patients aged 60 years or older.
It said 1,408 (777 male; 631 female) or 64% of the 2,198 applications to cross Erez in December were approved, close to the average approval rate so far for 2019. Over a third (36%) of permits approved were for children under 18 and a fifth (20%) were for patients aged 60 years or older.
However, 548 patient applications (322 male; 226 female), or 25% of the total, were delayed access to care, receiving no definitive response to their application by the date of their hospital appointment. Of these, 180 applications were for children under the age of 18 and 50 applications were for patients aged 60 years or older.
Almost a third (31%) of those delayed had appointments for oncology, 10% for hematology, 9% for pediatrics, 8% for cardiology, 7% for ophthalmology, and 7% for internal medicine. The remaining 28% were for 18 other specialties. The majority of delayed applications (499 or 91%) were 'under study’ at the time of appointment.
WHO said approval rate for those injured during the Great March of Return demonstrations, since 30 March 2018 remained significantly lower than the overall approval rate for patient permit applications to exit Gaza, with 17% (105) approved out of 604 applications, 28% (167) denied and 55% (332) delayed.
Out of 28 (19 male; 9 female) patients, aged 20 to 68 years, called in December for security interrogation at Erez as a prerequisite to processing of their permit applications, two of them were approved, nine were denied and 17 were delayed.
Thirteen patients had appointments for oncology, four for nuclear medicine, three for urology, two for vascular surgery, two for orthopedics, and one each for cardiology, hematology, neurosurgery, and general surgery.
It said that a quarter (25%) of denied applications were for appointments in oncology, 10% for orthopedics, 9% for cardiology, and 7% each for internal medicine, ophthalmology, urology, pediatrics, and hematology.
It explained that 88% of denied permit applications were for appointments at hospitals in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and 12% were for Israeli hospitals.
WHO said there were 2,198 patient applications submitted to Israeli authorities to cross Erez for healthcare in December: A third (34%) were for children under 18 and 16% were for patients aged 60 years or older.
It said 1,408 (777 male; 631 female) or 64% of the 2,198 applications to cross Erez in December were approved, close to the average approval rate so far for 2019. Over a third (36%) of permits approved were for children under 18 and a fifth (20%) were for patients aged 60 years or older.
However, 548 patient applications (322 male; 226 female), or 25% of the total, were delayed access to care, receiving no definitive response to their application by the date of their hospital appointment. Of these, 180 applications were for children under the age of 18 and 50 applications were for patients aged 60 years or older.
Almost a third (31%) of those delayed had appointments for oncology, 10% for hematology, 9% for pediatrics, 8% for cardiology, 7% for ophthalmology, and 7% for internal medicine. The remaining 28% were for 18 other specialties. The majority of delayed applications (499 or 91%) were 'under study’ at the time of appointment.
WHO said approval rate for those injured during the Great March of Return demonstrations, since 30 March 2018 remained significantly lower than the overall approval rate for patient permit applications to exit Gaza, with 17% (105) approved out of 604 applications, 28% (167) denied and 55% (332) delayed.
Out of 28 (19 male; 9 female) patients, aged 20 to 68 years, called in December for security interrogation at Erez as a prerequisite to processing of their permit applications, two of them were approved, nine were denied and 17 were delayed.
Thirteen patients had appointments for oncology, four for nuclear medicine, three for urology, two for vascular surgery, two for orthopedics, and one each for cardiology, hematology, neurosurgery, and general surgery.
31 jan 2020
Adalah: Plan is no more than joint U.S.-Israel effort to impose Israeli government’s vision for territory in flagrant violation of international law, and Palestinian right to self-determination.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s “Deal of the Century” gives a green light to permanently establish an Israeli apartheid regime in the West Bank, including illegal annexation of massive swaths of the occupied Palestinian West Bank that negates the inalienable right of the Palestinian people to self-determination.
Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel stresses that Trump’s deal – drawn up in close coordination with Israel’s administration – is no more than an attempt to bypass international legal barriers and to ignore Palestinians’ right to self-determination, as well as United Nations resolutions, and recent statements from the International Criminal Court.
Many aspects of the deal – announced on 28 January 2020 in a live televised press conference by Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – are of grave concern and resemble South Africa’s apartheid government in place between 1948-1994, including: the recognition of historic Palestine as the homeland of the Jewish people only; no recognition of the right of self-determination of the Palestinian people based on the UN charter; and the creation of “self-governing” Palestinian enclaves and bypass roads.
The Trump plan completely fails to recognize the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, violating the principles of the UN Charter. The plan does not envision statehood but a series of enclaves under Israel’s permanent military effective control. All basic pillars of self-determination – including control of border crossings, air space, the sea, territorial integrity and full sovereignty – are denied in order to create “self-governing” enclaves.
The plan envisions Israeli annexation of massive swaths of the occupied Palestinian West Bank; the forced transfer of Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel – a racially-motivated form of demographic engineering; and the negation of the right of return for Palestinian refugees.
Forced Transfer of Palestinian Arab Citizens of Israel
Trump’s plan proposes the forced transfer of over 260,000 Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel living in 10 towns in the Triangle region in the center of the country to a future enclave of Palestine. According to the plan, the residents of the earmarked communities would remain in their homes but Israel’s borders would simply be redrawn to leave them outside its borders:
“Land swaps provided by the State of Israel could include both populated and unpopulated areas. The Triangle Communities consist of Kafr Qara, Ar’ara, Baha al-Gharbiyye, Umm al Fahm, Qalansawe, Tayibe, Kafr Qasim, Tira, Kafr Bara and Jaljulia. These communities, which largely self-identify as Palestinian, were originally designated to fall under Jordanian control during the negotiations of the Armistice Line of 1949, but ultimately were retained by Israel for military reasons that have since been mitigated.
The Vision contemplates the possibility, subject to agreement of the parties that the borders of Israel will be redrawn such that the Triangle Communities become part of the State of Palestine. In this agreement, the civil rights of the residents of the triangle communities would be subject to the applicable laws and judicial rulings of the relevant authorities.” (Trump Plan, p. 13)
This marks the first time a U.S. administration has ever given a green light to the transfer of Israeli citizens to the authority of another state entity.
Adalah sees this move as a racially motivated attempt to forcibly transfer Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel, strip them of their Israeli citizenship, and place them under perpetual Israeli military occupation.
This kind of population transfer, which has been consistently rejected by Palestinian citizens of Israel when proposed by a variety of Israeli right-wing political leaders in the past, is blatantly illegal under international law and attempts to widen the demographic scope of racially-motivated separation.
Israel Annexes West Bank
The Trump administration’s plan grants Israel a stamp of approval to go forward with the annexation and continued colonization of massive areas of the occupied Palestinian West Bank and imposes full Israeli sovereignty over further Palestinian territories.
The UN and other international tribunals have consistently confirmed the status of the West Bank and Gaza as occupied territories and the illegality of Israel’s settlements in the occupied West Bank, including UN Security Council resolution 2334 (2016), the Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice on the Wall (2004), and most recently, in late December 2019, the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor announced that ongoing Israeli settlement activities in the West Bank constitute war crimes:
“There is a reasonable basis to believe that in the context of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, members of the Israeli authorities have committed war crimes under article 8(2)(b)(viii) in relation, inter alia, to the transfer of Israeli civilians into the West Bank…”
No Right of Return for Palestinian Refugees
The plan explicitly states that there shall be no right of return for any Palestinian refugee to the State of Israel, in blatant violation of UN Resolution 194.
The plan lays out three options for these refugees:
1. Absorption into the State of Palestine (subject to the limitations provided below);
2. Local integration in current host countries (subject to those countries consent);
3. The acceptance of 5,000 refugees each year, for up to ten years, in individual Organization of Islamic Cooperation member countries that agree to participate in Palestinian refugee resettlement.
The plan de facto establishes Israel as the sole full sovereign regime in Israel and in the 1967 Palestinian occupied territories – mandatory Palestine – effectively controlling Palestinian enclaves in that territory, and granting no political rights for most of the Palestinians living in self-governed bantustans in the West Bank and Gaza, and now, also in the Triangle region.
Read the full plan here [pdf].
U.S. President Donald Trump’s “Deal of the Century” gives a green light to permanently establish an Israeli apartheid regime in the West Bank, including illegal annexation of massive swaths of the occupied Palestinian West Bank that negates the inalienable right of the Palestinian people to self-determination.
Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel stresses that Trump’s deal – drawn up in close coordination with Israel’s administration – is no more than an attempt to bypass international legal barriers and to ignore Palestinians’ right to self-determination, as well as United Nations resolutions, and recent statements from the International Criminal Court.
Many aspects of the deal – announced on 28 January 2020 in a live televised press conference by Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – are of grave concern and resemble South Africa’s apartheid government in place between 1948-1994, including: the recognition of historic Palestine as the homeland of the Jewish people only; no recognition of the right of self-determination of the Palestinian people based on the UN charter; and the creation of “self-governing” Palestinian enclaves and bypass roads.
The Trump plan completely fails to recognize the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, violating the principles of the UN Charter. The plan does not envision statehood but a series of enclaves under Israel’s permanent military effective control. All basic pillars of self-determination – including control of border crossings, air space, the sea, territorial integrity and full sovereignty – are denied in order to create “self-governing” enclaves.
The plan envisions Israeli annexation of massive swaths of the occupied Palestinian West Bank; the forced transfer of Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel – a racially-motivated form of demographic engineering; and the negation of the right of return for Palestinian refugees.
Forced Transfer of Palestinian Arab Citizens of Israel
Trump’s plan proposes the forced transfer of over 260,000 Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel living in 10 towns in the Triangle region in the center of the country to a future enclave of Palestine. According to the plan, the residents of the earmarked communities would remain in their homes but Israel’s borders would simply be redrawn to leave them outside its borders:
“Land swaps provided by the State of Israel could include both populated and unpopulated areas. The Triangle Communities consist of Kafr Qara, Ar’ara, Baha al-Gharbiyye, Umm al Fahm, Qalansawe, Tayibe, Kafr Qasim, Tira, Kafr Bara and Jaljulia. These communities, which largely self-identify as Palestinian, were originally designated to fall under Jordanian control during the negotiations of the Armistice Line of 1949, but ultimately were retained by Israel for military reasons that have since been mitigated.
The Vision contemplates the possibility, subject to agreement of the parties that the borders of Israel will be redrawn such that the Triangle Communities become part of the State of Palestine. In this agreement, the civil rights of the residents of the triangle communities would be subject to the applicable laws and judicial rulings of the relevant authorities.” (Trump Plan, p. 13)
This marks the first time a U.S. administration has ever given a green light to the transfer of Israeli citizens to the authority of another state entity.
Adalah sees this move as a racially motivated attempt to forcibly transfer Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel, strip them of their Israeli citizenship, and place them under perpetual Israeli military occupation.
This kind of population transfer, which has been consistently rejected by Palestinian citizens of Israel when proposed by a variety of Israeli right-wing political leaders in the past, is blatantly illegal under international law and attempts to widen the demographic scope of racially-motivated separation.
Israel Annexes West Bank
The Trump administration’s plan grants Israel a stamp of approval to go forward with the annexation and continued colonization of massive areas of the occupied Palestinian West Bank and imposes full Israeli sovereignty over further Palestinian territories.
The UN and other international tribunals have consistently confirmed the status of the West Bank and Gaza as occupied territories and the illegality of Israel’s settlements in the occupied West Bank, including UN Security Council resolution 2334 (2016), the Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice on the Wall (2004), and most recently, in late December 2019, the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor announced that ongoing Israeli settlement activities in the West Bank constitute war crimes:
“There is a reasonable basis to believe that in the context of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, members of the Israeli authorities have committed war crimes under article 8(2)(b)(viii) in relation, inter alia, to the transfer of Israeli civilians into the West Bank…”
No Right of Return for Palestinian Refugees
The plan explicitly states that there shall be no right of return for any Palestinian refugee to the State of Israel, in blatant violation of UN Resolution 194.
The plan lays out three options for these refugees:
1. Absorption into the State of Palestine (subject to the limitations provided below);
2. Local integration in current host countries (subject to those countries consent);
3. The acceptance of 5,000 refugees each year, for up to ten years, in individual Organization of Islamic Cooperation member countries that agree to participate in Palestinian refugee resettlement.
The plan de facto establishes Israel as the sole full sovereign regime in Israel and in the 1967 Palestinian occupied territories – mandatory Palestine – effectively controlling Palestinian enclaves in that territory, and granting no political rights for most of the Palestinians living in self-governed bantustans in the West Bank and Gaza, and now, also in the Triangle region.
Read the full plan here [pdf].
