Israel Oppression of Palestinian People – Pre Oct 7,2023
Updated 2024-02-25
2024-02-16 ICJ Hearings to Examine 57 Years of Israeli Occupation of Palestine More than 50 countries are set to participate in next week’s hearings at the International Court of Justice focusing on Israel’s illegal 57-year occupation of Palestine, a forum that follows the Hague tribunal’s finding last month that Israel is “plausibly” committing genocide in occupied Gaza.
The ICJ—also known as the World Court—will hold a week of hearings on the legal consequences of Israel’s occupation of Palestine, which dates to the Israeli conquest of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza Strip, Syrian Golan Heights, and Egyptian Sinai Peninsula during the 1967 Six-Day War.
“The International Court of Justice is set for the first time to broadly consider the legal consequences of Israel’s nearly six-decades-long occupation and mistreatment of the Palestinian people,” Human Rights Watch senior legal adviser Clive Baldwin said in a statement. “Governments that are presenting their arguments to the court should seize these landmark hearings to highlight the grave abuses Israeli authorities are committing against Palestinians, including the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution.”
The West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Golan Heights remain under Israeli military occupation six decades after their conquest. The United Nations—to which the ICJ belongs—and many international NGOs contend that, despite removing its troops and settlers from Gaza two decades ago, Israel continues to occupy Gaza by controlling the besieged enclave’s airspace, territorial waters, and the entry and exit of people and goods.
Since the October 7 Hamas-led attacks on Israel, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have killed or wounded more than 100,000 Palestinians in Gaza while forcibly displacing around 90% of the population. Numerous Israeli leaders have called for the renewed physical occupation, Jewish resettlement, and ethnic cleansing of the strip. During the current assault on Gaza, occupation forces have also killed at least 388 Palestinians, including 99 children, in the West Bank, according to U.N. human rights officials. Israeli settlers have for decades been steadily colonizing the occupied territories under the protection of the IDF, while ethnically cleansing Palestinians whose lands and homes they steal. https://www.commondreams.org/news/israeli-occupation
2022-08-22 CIA unable to corroborate Israel’s ‘terror’ label for Palestinian rights groups Exclusive: sources say report shows CIA unable to find evidence to support Israeli claim, but finding does not prompt US rebuttal. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/22/cia-report-israel-palestinian-rights-groups
2022-08-21 Palestinian rights group chief arrested by Israeli intelligence Khaled Quzmar, general director of Defense of Children International – Palestine (DCIPalestine), was taken into custody on Sunday by the Shin Bet intelligence agency, according to a tweet from the organization. Quzmar was not allowed to have legal counsel accompany him.” It later said that, after two hours in custody, Quzmar was released.
The arrest is just the latest move in a campaign being waged by Israel against a number of Palestinian human rights organizations in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Six rights groups – Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, Al-Haq, Bisan Center for Research and Development, the Union of Agricultural Work Committees and the Union of Palestinian Women Committees as well as DCIPalestine – were designated as “terrorist organisations” by Israel in October 2021 and since then they have been subjected to increasing scrutiny. Many of the organisations have received funding from EU countries.
Earlier on Sunday, Al-Haq tweeted that its director had received a threatening phone call from an Israeli intelligence official over its work. According to Al-Haq, Shawan Jabarin was summoned by the Shin Bet for “interrogation” while the caller made “threats of imprisonment and other measures if Al-Haq continues its work”. On Friday, Israel raided and forcibly shuttered the rights groups’ offices in the West Bank, with soldiers confiscating items. The offices of the Union of Health Workers Committees, which has not been designated a terrorist organisation, were also raided.
The six groups that have been so designated have denied allegations of “terrorism” and their closure has met with criticism from both the United Nations and human rights organisations.
The foreign ministries of Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden have all said Israel has failed to provide them “substantial information” on the accusations and pledged to continue cooperating with the groups in the absence of any evidence. https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-rights-group-chief-arrested
2014-07-17 Pounding Gaza – World’s Largest Open-Air Prison An already troubling humanitarian crisis has intensified with the Israeli bombardment of Gaza, an area about twice the size of the District of Columbia that has about three times as many residents (1.8 million). Israel has been using its highly touted precise missiles to hit numerous targets. This collective punishment, a war crime per se, wreaks havoc on civilians and their life-sustaining infrastructure.
With over 1,700 explosive strikes so far, the Israeli military has pounded homes, schools, mosques, electric and water facilities, municipal buildings, health clinics, moving vehicles, a home for the seriously disabled and even tiny agriculture areas. As a result of these attacks, over two hundred and thirty Gazans have died and over seventeen hundred have been injured so far, about eighty percent are civilians, a majority of whom are women and children, according to UN observers.
That is only part of the continuing war against Gaza. For years, Israel has maintained a siege/blockade, restricting the importation of adequate food, medicine, water, electricity, construction materials and other necessities needed by the refugees in the world’s largest open-air prison. These daily deprivations have taken a deadly toll. Fatalities, sicknesses, untreated cancers have resulted. Half of the children are seriously malnourished due to the dire poverty associated with the Israeli air, land and sea encirclement. (There are even harsh restrictions on Gazan fishermen.) https://nader.org/2014/07/17/pounding-gaza-worlds-largest-open-air-prison/
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Categorized Directory: News and Articles about Israel- Palestine Conflict
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