1 july 2019
Spare a thought for the human rights groups in Palestine committed to documenting, holding to account, and otherwise having to deal with Israel’s racist regime.
Groups such as Al Haq, B’Tselem, Adalah and Al-Mezan are just some of the many groups which create an array of valuable reports, papers, videos, press campaigns and other publications. They also help represent and defend Palestinians facing Israel’s racist military “courts” system.
They do valuable work, and it is a thankless task. Dealing with the system of “military justice” – which has a 99.7 per cent conviction rate – must be like butting so many heads up against multiple walls. Expecting “justice” from a regime of military occupation is pointless.
And indeed, B’Tselem in 2016 made the decision that they would cease issuing formal complaints to Israel’s military occupation authorities in the West Bank. Accurately calling the process “the occupation’s fig leaf,” B’Tselem said there was “no longer any point in pursuing justice and defending human rights by working with a system whose real function is measured by its ability to continue to successfully cover up”.
The report the group released upon making this announcement documents how these cover-ups work. Since late 2000, when the Second Intifada began, B’Tselem had lodged 739 complaints within the occupation authorities’ internal system.
These were instances in which Israeli soldiers murdered, injured or physically abused Palestinians, or damaged their property – including cases of Palestinians forcibly used by Israeli soldiers as human shields. In the vast majority (three-quarters) of these 739 cases either the “investigation” was closed with no further action taken or had never even been launched in the first place.
B’Tselem states that “only in very rare instances” were any charges made against the soldiers concerned.
This is very obviously a system designed to whitewash the Israeli army’s image. The true function of this fig leaf is as a kind of international public relations. Journalists reporting on the latest Israeli crime quite regularly report – almost without fail – that Israel has “launched an investigation” into the murder or abuse of Palestinians by its soldiers – as if it were some abnormality.
Of course, a short while later, when the mildly critical attention of said journalists has waned, the investigation is quietly dropped, or concluded with some token rap on the knuckles.
As the group candidly admitted, “B’Tselem’s cooperation with the military investigation and enforcement system has not achieved justice, instead lending legitimacy to the occupation regime and aiding to whitewash it.”
It seems to me it was the right decision to withdraw from cooperating with this sham process.
There is an argument to be made that there should be a total boycott of the entire fabricated system of military “justice” in the occupied West Bank. This is a step some Palestinian political prisoners have actually taken.
Samidoun – the political support network for Palestinian prisoners – reports that Ghassan Zawahreh just this month declared a boycott of Israel’s military courts. Zawahreh is a prominent left-wing activist in Dheisheh refugee camp, near the West Bank city of Bethlehem. He has spent years in and out of Israeli dungeons and is currently interned by Israeli occupiers without charge or trial – their system of so-called “administrative detention”.
Zawahreh sent a letter to the court through his lawyer stating that, “administrative detention is a heinous crime for the ages. What is even more criminal is the occupation’s attempts to mislead through mock courts and charades where the executioner and the ruler, dressed up in military suits, represent the occupation and its crimes.
“I will not be a part of this charade until administrative detention is ended once and for all. I reject this court and refuse to be represented by anyone in it”.
There are currently about 500 Palestinians held in “administrative detention”. Palestinians have been jailed for years at a time without charge or trial under these repeated orders. There are currently more than 5,200 total Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.
Zawahreh’s stance is a brave move that could lead to further dire consequences for him. Yet until the Israeli occupation is forced to end, such consequences for Palestinians are an inevitability; he may feel he has nothing to lose.
Israel’s occupation will not end until ordinary voters, like you and I, force our governments to end political and military aid to Israel. A good first step in the right direction would be the immediate and total end to all arms sales to Israel. Jeremy Corbyn and other leading figures in the Labour Party have rightly called for an end to all arms sales to Saudi Arabia.
Let’s push them to do the same for Israel.
- Asa Winstanley is an investigative journalist living in London who writes about Palestine and the Middle East. He has been visiting Palestine since 2004 and is originally from south Wales. He writes for the award-winning Palestinian news site The Electronic Intifada where he is an associate editor and also a weekly column for the Middle East Monitor.
Groups such as Al Haq, B’Tselem, Adalah and Al-Mezan are just some of the many groups which create an array of valuable reports, papers, videos, press campaigns and other publications. They also help represent and defend Palestinians facing Israel’s racist military “courts” system.
They do valuable work, and it is a thankless task. Dealing with the system of “military justice” – which has a 99.7 per cent conviction rate – must be like butting so many heads up against multiple walls. Expecting “justice” from a regime of military occupation is pointless.
And indeed, B’Tselem in 2016 made the decision that they would cease issuing formal complaints to Israel’s military occupation authorities in the West Bank. Accurately calling the process “the occupation’s fig leaf,” B’Tselem said there was “no longer any point in pursuing justice and defending human rights by working with a system whose real function is measured by its ability to continue to successfully cover up”.
The report the group released upon making this announcement documents how these cover-ups work. Since late 2000, when the Second Intifada began, B’Tselem had lodged 739 complaints within the occupation authorities’ internal system.
These were instances in which Israeli soldiers murdered, injured or physically abused Palestinians, or damaged their property – including cases of Palestinians forcibly used by Israeli soldiers as human shields. In the vast majority (three-quarters) of these 739 cases either the “investigation” was closed with no further action taken or had never even been launched in the first place.
B’Tselem states that “only in very rare instances” were any charges made against the soldiers concerned.
This is very obviously a system designed to whitewash the Israeli army’s image. The true function of this fig leaf is as a kind of international public relations. Journalists reporting on the latest Israeli crime quite regularly report – almost without fail – that Israel has “launched an investigation” into the murder or abuse of Palestinians by its soldiers – as if it were some abnormality.
Of course, a short while later, when the mildly critical attention of said journalists has waned, the investigation is quietly dropped, or concluded with some token rap on the knuckles.
As the group candidly admitted, “B’Tselem’s cooperation with the military investigation and enforcement system has not achieved justice, instead lending legitimacy to the occupation regime and aiding to whitewash it.”
It seems to me it was the right decision to withdraw from cooperating with this sham process.
There is an argument to be made that there should be a total boycott of the entire fabricated system of military “justice” in the occupied West Bank. This is a step some Palestinian political prisoners have actually taken.
Samidoun – the political support network for Palestinian prisoners – reports that Ghassan Zawahreh just this month declared a boycott of Israel’s military courts. Zawahreh is a prominent left-wing activist in Dheisheh refugee camp, near the West Bank city of Bethlehem. He has spent years in and out of Israeli dungeons and is currently interned by Israeli occupiers without charge or trial – their system of so-called “administrative detention”.
Zawahreh sent a letter to the court through his lawyer stating that, “administrative detention is a heinous crime for the ages. What is even more criminal is the occupation’s attempts to mislead through mock courts and charades where the executioner and the ruler, dressed up in military suits, represent the occupation and its crimes.
“I will not be a part of this charade until administrative detention is ended once and for all. I reject this court and refuse to be represented by anyone in it”.
There are currently about 500 Palestinians held in “administrative detention”. Palestinians have been jailed for years at a time without charge or trial under these repeated orders. There are currently more than 5,200 total Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.
Zawahreh’s stance is a brave move that could lead to further dire consequences for him. Yet until the Israeli occupation is forced to end, such consequences for Palestinians are an inevitability; he may feel he has nothing to lose.
Israel’s occupation will not end until ordinary voters, like you and I, force our governments to end political and military aid to Israel. A good first step in the right direction would be the immediate and total end to all arms sales to Israel. Jeremy Corbyn and other leading figures in the Labour Party have rightly called for an end to all arms sales to Saudi Arabia.
Let’s push them to do the same for Israel.
- Asa Winstanley is an investigative journalist living in London who writes about Palestine and the Middle East. He has been visiting Palestine since 2004 and is originally from south Wales. He writes for the award-winning Palestinian news site The Electronic Intifada where he is an associate editor and also a weekly column for the Middle East Monitor.
30 june 2019
By Asa Winstanley
The Haifa-based Palestinian human rights group Adalah has done a lot of important work over the years. Its name is Arabic for “justice”. Much of Adalah’s work focuses on the rights of Palestinian citizens of Israel, or the “Palestinians of the 1948 territories” as they often describe themselves.
The group maintains an important database chronicling more than 65 laws in Israel which systematically discriminate against 20 per cent of its population. It is a fact that Israel has always been an apartheid state, not only since the Knesset passed the openly racist “Jewish Nation State Law” last summer.
That new measure did not really change much in terms of the letter of Israeli law. What it did do, though, was to explain clearly, in black and white, the motives behind much of Israel’s existing racist laws. It made things clearer, in other words, sending a signal to the Palestinian people that the historic land of Palestine – what the law terms the “Land of Israel” – belongs to the Jews alone, and no one else.
This clarity explains some of the tactical disagreements with the law that many pro-Zionist liberals had. Liberal Zionists do not disagree on the racist principle that “the right to national self-determination in the state of Israel is unique to the Jewish people,” as the new law claims. Rather, they disagree with spelling this out in such brazen terms, leading to adverse international publicity, and the resultant decline in long term political support.
However, the naked racism of the Jewish Nation State Law is in reality only the latest such measure. As Adalah documents in detail in its database, the trail of these racist laws goes back to the very foundation of the state.
Take Israel’s 1950 “Law of Return,” for example. This law bestows upon any Jewish person in the world the right to migrate to the land of Palestine and automatically become a citizen of Israel. It applies to the children and grandchildren of Jews, as well as to their spouses, and the spouses of their children and grandchildren.
No comparable Israeli law exists guaranteeing the same rights for Palestinians, who are, after all, the indigenous people of the land. On the contrary, Palestinian refugees – expelled by force by Zionist militias over the course of several years starting in 1947 – are still excluded, despite having the right to return under international laws and conventions.
In Israel, though, laws were passed to ensure that the refugees never did or could return, starting with the 1950 “Absentees’ Property Law”. This essentially provided a legal fig leaf for the mass theft of land, homes, bank accounts and other Palestinian property on a grand scale.
The 800,000 or so Palestinian refugees – who were expelled by force, remember – were declared to be “absentees” under Israeli law, and their lands and properties were confiscated. Hundreds of Palestinian villages had in any case already been bulldozed and dynamited, wiping them off the map. Thus Israel always has been, and remains, an intrinsically racist, apartheid state.
Adalah also does lots of important work documenting Israel’s human rights abuses in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the parts of historic Palestine which Israel invaded and has occupied illegally since 1967. Some of this work is detailed in the racist laws database I referred to above, which also lists Israeli laws which discriminate against the Palestinians living under Israeli occupation since the June 1967 Six Day War.
Recently, Adalah obtained official Israeli documents revealing the military’s “rules of engagement”, which it uses to justify its violence against Palestinian protesters, specifically in Gaza in this case. The rules show that the Israeli military has officially ordained to itself the right to shoot unarmed Palestinian protesters in the back, people it smears and slanders as “rioters”.
Those organizing the Great March of Return protests since March last year can be targeted even when posing no threat to Israeli soldiers; even when walking away. As Adalah points out, “Israeli snipers… may open fire with live ammunition on ‘key instigators’ or ‘key rioters’ even when they are no longer participating in the protest or are resting.”
Many of the protesters in Gaza are children. Adalah says that since the marches began last year, Israel has killed 207 Palestinians during protests, including 44 children. A staggering 16,831 Palestinians have also been injured, 3,905 of them children.
The documents were presented during hearings at Israel’s high court. Disgustingly, the court ruled last year that the army was permitted to use live rounds against unarmed protesters. This is a measure that it would never sanction against Jewish protesters.
Adalah attorney Suhad Bishara explained that Israel’s fictional category of “key instigators” was “created retroactively in order to justify the shootings of people who posed no real and immediate danger to Israeli soldiers or civilians. The military’s document attempts to explain away the indiscriminate shooting of unarmed demonstrators which results from a total disregard for human life.”
The apartheid state of Israel should be held to account for such crimes against humanity.
- Asa Winstanley is an investigative journalist living in London who writes about Palestine and the Middle East. He has been visiting Palestine since 2004 and is originally from south Wales. He writes for the award-winning Palestinian news site The Electronic Intifada where he is an associate editor and also a weekly column for the Middle East Monitor.
The Haifa-based Palestinian human rights group Adalah has done a lot of important work over the years. Its name is Arabic for “justice”. Much of Adalah’s work focuses on the rights of Palestinian citizens of Israel, or the “Palestinians of the 1948 territories” as they often describe themselves.
The group maintains an important database chronicling more than 65 laws in Israel which systematically discriminate against 20 per cent of its population. It is a fact that Israel has always been an apartheid state, not only since the Knesset passed the openly racist “Jewish Nation State Law” last summer.
That new measure did not really change much in terms of the letter of Israeli law. What it did do, though, was to explain clearly, in black and white, the motives behind much of Israel’s existing racist laws. It made things clearer, in other words, sending a signal to the Palestinian people that the historic land of Palestine – what the law terms the “Land of Israel” – belongs to the Jews alone, and no one else.
This clarity explains some of the tactical disagreements with the law that many pro-Zionist liberals had. Liberal Zionists do not disagree on the racist principle that “the right to national self-determination in the state of Israel is unique to the Jewish people,” as the new law claims. Rather, they disagree with spelling this out in such brazen terms, leading to adverse international publicity, and the resultant decline in long term political support.
However, the naked racism of the Jewish Nation State Law is in reality only the latest such measure. As Adalah documents in detail in its database, the trail of these racist laws goes back to the very foundation of the state.
Take Israel’s 1950 “Law of Return,” for example. This law bestows upon any Jewish person in the world the right to migrate to the land of Palestine and automatically become a citizen of Israel. It applies to the children and grandchildren of Jews, as well as to their spouses, and the spouses of their children and grandchildren.
No comparable Israeli law exists guaranteeing the same rights for Palestinians, who are, after all, the indigenous people of the land. On the contrary, Palestinian refugees – expelled by force by Zionist militias over the course of several years starting in 1947 – are still excluded, despite having the right to return under international laws and conventions.
In Israel, though, laws were passed to ensure that the refugees never did or could return, starting with the 1950 “Absentees’ Property Law”. This essentially provided a legal fig leaf for the mass theft of land, homes, bank accounts and other Palestinian property on a grand scale.
The 800,000 or so Palestinian refugees – who were expelled by force, remember – were declared to be “absentees” under Israeli law, and their lands and properties were confiscated. Hundreds of Palestinian villages had in any case already been bulldozed and dynamited, wiping them off the map. Thus Israel always has been, and remains, an intrinsically racist, apartheid state.
Adalah also does lots of important work documenting Israel’s human rights abuses in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the parts of historic Palestine which Israel invaded and has occupied illegally since 1967. Some of this work is detailed in the racist laws database I referred to above, which also lists Israeli laws which discriminate against the Palestinians living under Israeli occupation since the June 1967 Six Day War.
Recently, Adalah obtained official Israeli documents revealing the military’s “rules of engagement”, which it uses to justify its violence against Palestinian protesters, specifically in Gaza in this case. The rules show that the Israeli military has officially ordained to itself the right to shoot unarmed Palestinian protesters in the back, people it smears and slanders as “rioters”.
Those organizing the Great March of Return protests since March last year can be targeted even when posing no threat to Israeli soldiers; even when walking away. As Adalah points out, “Israeli snipers… may open fire with live ammunition on ‘key instigators’ or ‘key rioters’ even when they are no longer participating in the protest or are resting.”
Many of the protesters in Gaza are children. Adalah says that since the marches began last year, Israel has killed 207 Palestinians during protests, including 44 children. A staggering 16,831 Palestinians have also been injured, 3,905 of them children.
The documents were presented during hearings at Israel’s high court. Disgustingly, the court ruled last year that the army was permitted to use live rounds against unarmed protesters. This is a measure that it would never sanction against Jewish protesters.
Adalah attorney Suhad Bishara explained that Israel’s fictional category of “key instigators” was “created retroactively in order to justify the shootings of people who posed no real and immediate danger to Israeli soldiers or civilians. The military’s document attempts to explain away the indiscriminate shooting of unarmed demonstrators which results from a total disregard for human life.”
The apartheid state of Israel should be held to account for such crimes against humanity.
- Asa Winstanley is an investigative journalist living in London who writes about Palestine and the Middle East. He has been visiting Palestine since 2004 and is originally from south Wales. He writes for the award-winning Palestinian news site The Electronic Intifada where he is an associate editor and also a weekly column for the Middle East Monitor.
Israeli soldiers have killed one Palestinian, injured more than 95 and abducted at least 30, in ongoing invasions and serious escalation since this past Thursday, in the al-Isawiya town, in the center of occupied East Jerusalem.
Besides the ongoing invasions, and the excessive use of force against the Palestinian protesters, the army and the police have also imposed a series of sanctions and collective punishment measures against the residents, in addition to invading and ransacking dozens of homes, hospitals and clinics.
Although the invasions are more violent in al-‘Isawiya, they also targeted many other parts of occupied Jerusalem, including the Old City, and surrounding areas, and once again, the army invaded various sections of al-Makassed Hospital.
During the invasions into the hospital, the army assaulted many physicians, nurses and even patients, while the soldiers were also deployed it in various sections, and around it, looking for wounding Palestinians to abduct them.
On Thursday, June 27th, the soldiers killed a former political prisoner, identified as Mohammad Samir Obeid, 21, when they shot him with a live round in the heart, from a close range, after the soldiers assaulted and resorted to the excessive use of force against the Palestinians in al-‘Isawiya town.
After killing the young man, the soldiers took his corpse away, and are still refusing to send it back to his family for burial. They later abducted his father Samir, and his sister, Sondos. The slain Palestinian spent a total of four years in Israeli prisons, and was released a year ago, after being held for twenty months.
During the Israeli invasions into al-‘Isawiya since Thursday evening, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said its medics have provided treatment to at least 95 Palestinians, including 74 who were shot with rubber-coated steel bullets, 7 who sustained fractures and bruises, and 15 who suffered the effects of teargas inhalation.
Mofeed al-Hajj, a lawyer with the Palestinian Prisoners Society (PPS) in Jerusalem, said the soldiers have abducted at least 30 Palestinians.
Some of the abducted Palestinians have been identified as As’ad Dari, Mahmoud Abdullah Dari, Wasim Eyad Dari, Jamal Mohammad Dari, Saed Osama Dari, Abed Abu Sayma, Fuad Obeid, Mahmoud Assem Obeid, Mahmoud Essam Obeid, Mahmoud Sa’id Obeid, Mahmoud Mohammad Obeid, Ali Sufian Obeid, Mohammad Marwan Obeid, Tareq Marwan Obeid, Yousef Farid Obeid, Wasim Nayef Obeid and his wife, Aziz Ghassan Oleyyan, Aziz Ammar Oleyyan, Mohammad Fares Oleyyan, Mohammad Sameeh Oleyyan and Ahmad Haitham Mahmoud.
The abductions were also carried out amidst further collective punishment measures, including destruction of property, imposing high fines and fees, causing damage to cars, and tightening the siege and isolation of the town.
This escalation came while Israel has already been imposing sanctions and collective punishment against the Palestinians, their homes and lands, and started shortly after Israel decided to demolish homes and remove the Palestinians from their lands, to build what it called a “National Garden.”
It also came after Israel issued demolition orders targeting 16 Palestinian apartment buildings of more than 100 apartments in Sur Baher town, and similar orders targeting homes and structures in and around occupied Jerusalem.
Besides the ongoing invasions, and the excessive use of force against the Palestinian protesters, the army and the police have also imposed a series of sanctions and collective punishment measures against the residents, in addition to invading and ransacking dozens of homes, hospitals and clinics.
Although the invasions are more violent in al-‘Isawiya, they also targeted many other parts of occupied Jerusalem, including the Old City, and surrounding areas, and once again, the army invaded various sections of al-Makassed Hospital.
During the invasions into the hospital, the army assaulted many physicians, nurses and even patients, while the soldiers were also deployed it in various sections, and around it, looking for wounding Palestinians to abduct them.
On Thursday, June 27th, the soldiers killed a former political prisoner, identified as Mohammad Samir Obeid, 21, when they shot him with a live round in the heart, from a close range, after the soldiers assaulted and resorted to the excessive use of force against the Palestinians in al-‘Isawiya town.
After killing the young man, the soldiers took his corpse away, and are still refusing to send it back to his family for burial. They later abducted his father Samir, and his sister, Sondos. The slain Palestinian spent a total of four years in Israeli prisons, and was released a year ago, after being held for twenty months.
During the Israeli invasions into al-‘Isawiya since Thursday evening, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said its medics have provided treatment to at least 95 Palestinians, including 74 who were shot with rubber-coated steel bullets, 7 who sustained fractures and bruises, and 15 who suffered the effects of teargas inhalation.
Mofeed al-Hajj, a lawyer with the Palestinian Prisoners Society (PPS) in Jerusalem, said the soldiers have abducted at least 30 Palestinians.
Some of the abducted Palestinians have been identified as As’ad Dari, Mahmoud Abdullah Dari, Wasim Eyad Dari, Jamal Mohammad Dari, Saed Osama Dari, Abed Abu Sayma, Fuad Obeid, Mahmoud Assem Obeid, Mahmoud Essam Obeid, Mahmoud Sa’id Obeid, Mahmoud Mohammad Obeid, Ali Sufian Obeid, Mohammad Marwan Obeid, Tareq Marwan Obeid, Yousef Farid Obeid, Wasim Nayef Obeid and his wife, Aziz Ghassan Oleyyan, Aziz Ammar Oleyyan, Mohammad Fares Oleyyan, Mohammad Sameeh Oleyyan and Ahmad Haitham Mahmoud.
The abductions were also carried out amidst further collective punishment measures, including destruction of property, imposing high fines and fees, causing damage to cars, and tightening the siege and isolation of the town.
This escalation came while Israel has already been imposing sanctions and collective punishment against the Palestinians, their homes and lands, and started shortly after Israel decided to demolish homes and remove the Palestinians from their lands, to build what it called a “National Garden.”
It also came after Israel issued demolition orders targeting 16 Palestinian apartment buildings of more than 100 apartments in Sur Baher town, and similar orders targeting homes and structures in and around occupied Jerusalem.
29 june 2019
The Palestinian Center For Human Rights (PCHR): On Friday, 28 June 2019, in excessive use of force against peaceful protesters on the 64th Friday of the Great March of Return and Breaking the Siege, Israeli forces wounded 128 Palestinian civilians, including 38 children, 3 women, 7 paramedics, and a journalist. Four of those wounded sustained serious wounds.
According to observations by PCHR’s fieldworkers, the Israeli forces who stationed in prone positions and in military jeeps along the fence with Israel continued to use excessive force against the protesters by firing bullets and tear gas canisters at them.
As a result, dozens of the protesters were hit with bullets and teargas canisters without posing any imminent threat or danger to the life of soldiers.
On Friday, 28 June 2019, the incidents were as follows:
At approximately 16:30, thousands of civilians, including women, children and entire families, started swarming to the five encampments established by the Supreme National Authority of Great March of Return and Breaking the Siege adjacent to the border fence with Israel in eastern Gaza Strip cities.
Hundreds of protesters, including children and women, gathered adjacent to the border fence with Israel in front of each encampment and its vicinity tens and hundreds of meters away from the fence. The protesters chanted slogans, raised flags, and in very limited incidents attempted to approach the border fence and throw stones and Molotov Cocktails at the Israeli forces, who fired live and rubber bullets at them.
The Israeli shooting, which continued until 19:30, resulted in the injury of 128 Palestinian civilians, including 38 children, 3 women, 7 paramedics, and a journalist. Among those wounded, 41 were hit were hit with live bullets and shrapnel, 36 were hit with rubber bullets and 46 were directly hit with tear gas canisters. In addition, dozens of civilians suffered tear gas inhalation and seizures due to tear gas canisters that were fired by the Israeli forces from the military jeeps and riffles in the eastern Gaza Strip.
The following table shows the number of civilian casualties due to the Israeli forces’ suppression of the Great March of Return since its beginning on 30 March:
Killed Wounded
Total 207 12953
Children 44 2608
Women 2 392
Journalists 2 203
Medical personnel 4 217
Persons with disabilities 9 Undefined
Note: Among those wounded, 550 are in serious condition and 137 had their lower or upper limbs amputated; 123 lower-limb amputations, 14 upper-limb amputations, and 25 children had their limbs amputated according to the Ministry of Health. The number of those wounded only include those wounded with live bullets and directly hit with tear gas canisters, as there have been thousand others who suffered tear gas inhalation and sustained bruises.
PCHR reiterates Palestinians’ right to peaceful assembly to confront Israel and its forces’ denial of the legitimate and inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, including the right to self-determination, right to return and right to end the occupation of the Palestinian territory.
PCHR stresses that the Israeli forces should stop using excessive force and respond to the legitimate demands of the demonstrators, particularly lifting the closure which is the real solution to end the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip.
PCHR reiterates the reported published in February by the UN Commission of Inquiry which emphasizes what came by PCHR and other Palestinian and international human rights organizations. The report at the time concluded that the Israeli violations may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.
PCHR emphasizes that continuously targeting civilians, who exercise their right to peaceful assembly or while carrying out their humanitarian duty, is a serious violation of the rules of international law, international humanitarian law, the ICC Rome Statute and Fourth Geneva Convention.
Thus, PCHR reiterates its call upon the ICC Prosecutor to open an official investigation in these crimes and to prosecute and hold accountable all those applying or involved in issuing orders within the Israeli Forces at the security and political echelons.
PCHR also emphasizes that the High Contracting Parties to the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention should fulfill their obligation under Article 1; i.e., to respect and ensure respect for the Convention in all circumstances and their obligations under Article 146 to prosecute persons alleged to commit grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention.
PCHR calls upon Switzerland, in its capacity as the Depository State for the Convention, to demand the High Contracting Parties to convene a meeting and ensure Israel’s respect for this Convention, noting that these grave breaches constitute war crimes under Article 147 of the same Convention and Protocol (I) Additional to the Geneva Conventions regarding the guarantee of Palestinian civilians’ right to protection in the occupied territories.
Public Document
**************************************
Follow PCHR on Facebook and Twitter
For more information please call PCHR office in Gaza, Gaza Strip, on +972 8 2824776 – 2825893
Gaza- Jamal ‘Abdel Nasser “al-Thalathini” Street – Al-Roya Building- Floor 12 , El Remal, PO Box 1328 Gaza, Gaza Strip. E-mail: pchr@pchrgaza.org, Webpage http://www.pchrgaza.org
According to observations by PCHR’s fieldworkers, the Israeli forces who stationed in prone positions and in military jeeps along the fence with Israel continued to use excessive force against the protesters by firing bullets and tear gas canisters at them.
As a result, dozens of the protesters were hit with bullets and teargas canisters without posing any imminent threat or danger to the life of soldiers.
On Friday, 28 June 2019, the incidents were as follows:
At approximately 16:30, thousands of civilians, including women, children and entire families, started swarming to the five encampments established by the Supreme National Authority of Great March of Return and Breaking the Siege adjacent to the border fence with Israel in eastern Gaza Strip cities.
Hundreds of protesters, including children and women, gathered adjacent to the border fence with Israel in front of each encampment and its vicinity tens and hundreds of meters away from the fence. The protesters chanted slogans, raised flags, and in very limited incidents attempted to approach the border fence and throw stones and Molotov Cocktails at the Israeli forces, who fired live and rubber bullets at them.
The Israeli shooting, which continued until 19:30, resulted in the injury of 128 Palestinian civilians, including 38 children, 3 women, 7 paramedics, and a journalist. Among those wounded, 41 were hit were hit with live bullets and shrapnel, 36 were hit with rubber bullets and 46 were directly hit with tear gas canisters. In addition, dozens of civilians suffered tear gas inhalation and seizures due to tear gas canisters that were fired by the Israeli forces from the military jeeps and riffles in the eastern Gaza Strip.
The following table shows the number of civilian casualties due to the Israeli forces’ suppression of the Great March of Return since its beginning on 30 March:
Killed Wounded
Total 207 12953
Children 44 2608
Women 2 392
Journalists 2 203
Medical personnel 4 217
Persons with disabilities 9 Undefined
Note: Among those wounded, 550 are in serious condition and 137 had their lower or upper limbs amputated; 123 lower-limb amputations, 14 upper-limb amputations, and 25 children had their limbs amputated according to the Ministry of Health. The number of those wounded only include those wounded with live bullets and directly hit with tear gas canisters, as there have been thousand others who suffered tear gas inhalation and sustained bruises.
PCHR reiterates Palestinians’ right to peaceful assembly to confront Israel and its forces’ denial of the legitimate and inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, including the right to self-determination, right to return and right to end the occupation of the Palestinian territory.
PCHR stresses that the Israeli forces should stop using excessive force and respond to the legitimate demands of the demonstrators, particularly lifting the closure which is the real solution to end the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip.
PCHR reiterates the reported published in February by the UN Commission of Inquiry which emphasizes what came by PCHR and other Palestinian and international human rights organizations. The report at the time concluded that the Israeli violations may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.
PCHR emphasizes that continuously targeting civilians, who exercise their right to peaceful assembly or while carrying out their humanitarian duty, is a serious violation of the rules of international law, international humanitarian law, the ICC Rome Statute and Fourth Geneva Convention.
Thus, PCHR reiterates its call upon the ICC Prosecutor to open an official investigation in these crimes and to prosecute and hold accountable all those applying or involved in issuing orders within the Israeli Forces at the security and political echelons.
PCHR also emphasizes that the High Contracting Parties to the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention should fulfill their obligation under Article 1; i.e., to respect and ensure respect for the Convention in all circumstances and their obligations under Article 146 to prosecute persons alleged to commit grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention.
PCHR calls upon Switzerland, in its capacity as the Depository State for the Convention, to demand the High Contracting Parties to convene a meeting and ensure Israel’s respect for this Convention, noting that these grave breaches constitute war crimes under Article 147 of the same Convention and Protocol (I) Additional to the Geneva Conventions regarding the guarantee of Palestinian civilians’ right to protection in the occupied territories.
Public Document
**************************************
Follow PCHR on Facebook and Twitter
For more information please call PCHR office in Gaza, Gaza Strip, on +972 8 2824776 – 2825893
Gaza- Jamal ‘Abdel Nasser “al-Thalathini” Street – Al-Roya Building- Floor 12 , El Remal, PO Box 1328 Gaza, Gaza Strip. E-mail: pchr@pchrgaza.org, Webpage http://www.pchrgaza.org
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