MISDADEN VAN DE ISRAELISCHE BEZETTINGVERWOESTING VAN GAZA
MISDADEN VAN DE ISRAELISCHE BEZETTINGVERWOESTING VAN GAZA
BEZETTINGSTERREUR foto Oda Hulsen Hebron 2 mei 2017/Verwijst naar foto van een Palestijnse jongen, die tegen de muur wordt gezet doorIsraelische soldaten, die hem toeriepen ”Where is your knife!”/Later vrijgelaten
NB Het is dus NIET de foto van een Palestijnse jongen, die bij de kraag wordt gegrepen
Foto van Oda Hulsen valt soms weg
BEZETTINGSTERREUR foto Oda Hulsen Hebron 2 mei 2017/Verwijst naar foto van een Palestijnse jongen, die tegen de muur wordt gezet doorIsraelische soldaten, die hem toeriepen ”Where is your knife!”/Later vrijgelaten
NB Het is dus NIET de foto van een Palestijnse jongen, die bij de kraag wordt gegrepen
Foto van Oda Hulsen valt soms weg
BITTEREBIJPRODUCTEN VAN DE ISRAELISCHE BEZETTING:
NEDERZETTINGEN, BITTEREBIJPRODUCTEN VAN DE ISRAELISCHE BEZETTING
U zult zich afvragen [want neen, dit is GEEN grap!], waarom ik
deze brief begin met het aloude liedje ”Heb je wel gehoord van de Zevensprong” [1]
Welnu, het antwoord is simpel
Omdat ik u, o Vomar Directie en Management, nu al voor
de ZEVENDE keer aanschrijf in verband met uw foute verkoop van
producten uit de bezettings en apartheidsstaat Israel! [2]
De meest recente mail dateert van 8 maart jongstleden [3]
U schijnt zich tot nu toe weinig aan te trekken van mijn met uitgebreide feiten/rapporten omklede mails, maar zoals ik al eerder heb geschreven, bent u
nog lang niet van mij af!
Ik citeer mijzelf uit een eerdere mail aan uw adres
””En ik blijf u bestoken, zolang het nodig is.
En het is nodig, zolang u in uw filial[en] Israelische producten
verkoopt!
STOP ER DUS MEE!”’ [4]
WAT IS ER NU WEER AAN DE HAND BIJ DE VOMAR?
Ik kwam bij de VOMAR en zag in de aanbiedingsfolder van zondag
2 april t/m zaterdag 8 april [Stille Zaterdag oftewel Paaszaterdag] [5],
o.a. avocado’s in de aanbieding [6]
”LEKKER” dacht ik
Doch wederom werd ik zeer onaangenaam getroffen
Want net zoals bij de aanbiedingsfolder van 5 MAART 2023-11 MAART 2023 het geval was geweest [7]-waarop mijn 8 maart mail
volgde [8], komen deze avocado’s dus uit Israel!
En daarom neem ik u wederom te grazen en legiok u nogmaals
alle onaangename en schokkende feiten voor!
BEZETTINGSSTAAT EN APARTHEIDSSTAAT:
We gaan maar weer eens los!’
U zult weten, hoort dat althans te weten, dat de Staat Israel reeds 55 jaar de Palestijnse gebieden de Westelijke Jordaanoever, Gaza [9] en Oost-Jeruzalem bezet houdt.
En alsof dat al niet erg genoeg is, heeft die bezetting [zoals alle vreemde bezettingen, overal ter wereld] veroorzaakt onderdrukking, vernederingen,[oorlogs] misdaden.
Ik kan en wil die hier niet allemaal opsommen [trouwens, die lijst is onuitputtelijk], maar ernstige voorbeelden zijn Israelische luchtaanvallen op Gaza uit 2021 [niet zo lang geleden dus], waarbij
in de periode tussen 10 en 21 mei 260 mensen zijn omgekomen,
onder wie tenminste 129 burgers [waaronder 66 kinderen] [10]
Mensenrechtenorganisatie Human Rights Watch wees in het
byzonder op een specifieke Israelische luchtaanval op vier dichtbevolkte
gebouwentorens, waarin zich huizen, zaken en persagentschappen
bevonden.
Weliswaar leidde het niet tot dodelijke slachtoffers, maar drie Torens
werden met de grond gelijkgemaakt, velen werden dakloos en
verloren hun baan [11], in een gebied, wat door de wurgende
Blokkade van Gaza al economisch kapot gemaakt is [12]
Ik som niet alle bloedige Israelische aanvallen op Gaza op,
maar noem nog, te uwer opwekking, uit het Jaarrapport van Amnesty International over 2022 het gewelddadige Israelische militaire
optreden in Gaza, waarbij 1700 huizen werden verwoest en honderden
mensen dakloos werden en zeker [volgens Amnesty rapportage] 17 burgers werden gedood, onder wie acht kinderen, excessief gewelddadig
militair optreden in de bezette Westbank, waaronder buitengerechtelijke
executies [13], administratieve detentie [14] en foltering tierden welig. [15]
En laten we vooral niet vergeten de arrestatie en mishandeling van
Palestijnse gelovigen [onder wie kinderen] en journalisten
in en rond de Al-Aqsa Moskee! [16]
NEDERZETTINGEN, IN STRIJD MET HET INTERNATIONAAL RECHT!
Dan heb ik het nog niet eens gehad over de in bezet Palestijns gebied
gestichte nederzettingen, waarvan de uitbreiding maar doorgaat en doorgaat [17].
Welnu, die nederzettingen zijn, zoals ik u al in een eerdere brief heb
meegedeeld [18], [dus kom me niet aan met het smoesje, dat
u daarvan niet op de hoogte was], illegaal volgens het Internationaal Recht
[19] EN regelrechte landdiefstal, omdat zij dus worden gebouwd op gestolen Palestijns land!
Zie ook noot 20, rapportage van de Israelische mensenrechtenorganisatie
B’tselem.
Daarnaast is er vaak sprake van gewelddadig optreden van de
kolonisten [nederzettingenbewoners] tegen de bezette Palestijnse
bevolking en toont Btselem aan, dat dit geweld vaak wordt
ondersteund en gesupported door de Israelische Staat/leger. [21]
FASCISTISCHE REGERING!
En alsof dat allemaal nog niet genoeg is, is er in het huidige Israel
een fascistische regering aan de macht!
En over de Life and Times van deze fascistische Israelische regering
kunt u alles lezen onder noot 22, behelzende een kritisch
commentaar, dat ik eerder naar de NOS toestuurde.
EPILOOG
Ik begon mijn betoog met de woorden ”En dat is Ze-he-ven” uit
het aloude Kinderliedje ”Heb je wel gehoord van de Zevensprong”
[23]
Dat is GEEN grap.
Dat is bittere Ernst!
Want het is kennelijk nu al de Zevende Maal, dat ik u
heb aangeschreven over uw foute verkoop van producten uit
de bezettings en apartheidsstaat Israel! [24]
En dat blijf ik doen!
Want wie zwijgt, stemt toe
En wie producten verkoopt uit een Staat, die al sinds 1967 bezet, foltert,
oorlogsmisdaden pleegt, mensen op grond van hun afkomst ongelijk
behandelt, mensen via een blokkade uithongert en medische hulp
onthoudt [25] EN nu ook een fascistische regering heeft [26] verdient
aan onderdrukking en foltering
Houdt het Kwaad van bezetting en de Misdaad van Apartheid in stand!
En denk vooral niet:
Als we maar doorgaan met de verkoop van besmette producten,
zal Astrid Essed wel ophouden met ons te schrijven, maar daarin
zult u teleurgesteld worden, want ik blijf u bestoken
U BENT NOG NIET VAN MIJ AF!!
U hoeft het niet te lezen en mag het ongeopend deleten als u
dat wilt, weet wel, dat uw misdadige praktijken worden verspreid,
zodat anderen er kennis van zullen nemen
Dus nogmaals
STOP ERMEE!
STOP MET UW MEDEPLICHTIGHEID AAN ONDERDRUKKING EN
APARTHEID!
AMANDLA!
DEZE KEER VOOR HET PALESTIJNSE VOLK
Vriendelijke groeten
Astrid Essed
Amsterdam
NOTEN
Voor uw gemak zijn de noten hieronder in links vermeld
Na een verscherping van de Israëlische blokkade van de Gazastrook sinds 5 november, is de humanitaire situatie er erger dan ooit. Gaza is onderworpen aan nooit geziene beperkingen op toevoer van voedsel en hulp. Bakkerijen zijn gesloten door een tekort aan bloem, ziekenhuizen hebben gebrek aan energievoorziening.
Op 5 november kwam er einde aan het staakt-het-vuren dat sinds 19 juni van kracht was tussen Israël en Hamas in Gaza. Ondanks het staakt-het-vuren liet Israël geen echte verbetering van de humanitaire situatie toe. Sinds het eind van het staakt-het-vuren is de situatie nog verder achteruit gegaan. De gevolgen van de blokkade waren nog nooit zo zwaar voor de Palestijnse bevolking.
Tussen 5 en 24 november werden slechts 60 vrachtwagens met hulpmiddelen in Gaza toegelaten. In 2006 waren dat dagelijks nog 4000 voertuigen. De hoeveelheid VN-hulpgoederen die Israël binnenlaat, is te beperkt om in de basisbehoeften van de Palestijnse bevolking in Gaza te voorzien en maar net voldoende om te overleven.
“Gaza zit compleet door haar voorraden heen. De bevolking in Gaza had al bijzonder weinig te eten. Nu hebben ze nog minder. Soms kunnen ze zelfs geen brood kopen,” zegt Lore Van Welden, woordvoerster van Amnesty International Vlaanderen.
“Ondertussen liggen er ook bergen afval op straat. Door een tekort aan brandstof en elektriciteit komt er dagelijks rioolwater in zee terecht en loopt de watervoorziening mank. Er is een tekort aan veevoeder, meststoffen en zaden voor eigen voedselproductie en er is amper energie beschikbaar.”
Zwaar zieke patiënten worden vaak door Israël geweigerd om Gaza te verlaten voor medische behandeling die in Gaza niet voorhanden is. Daarvoor geeft Israël ‘veiligheidsredenen’ op zonder dat daar enig bewijs voor is.
Op 25 november overleed Karima Abu Dalal. Ze leed aan een geneesbare vorm van kanker. Een jaar geleden stelde een kankerspecialist van de Israëlische organisatie Physicians for Human Rights Israel: “Dit is een jonge vrouw die zal sterven als ze geen behandeling krijgt. Als ze die behandeling wel krijgt, zijn haar kansen op herstel optimaal.” Meermaals kreeg Karima geen vergunning om Gaza te verlaten. Het is onaanvaardbaar dat mensen daardoor sterven.
Als bezettende macht moet Israël toezien op het welzijn en bescherming van de rechten van de bevolking van Gaza. Beperkingen moeten gericht zijn op specifieke individuen die een veiligheidsrisico vormen. Nu lijdt de hele bevolking eronder. Dergelijke collectieve bestraffing is ontoelaatbaar.
“Israël komt haar verantwoordelijkheden tegenover de bevolking van Gaza zoals vastgelegd in internationaal humanitair recht niet na. Israël heeft het recht en de plicht haar bevolking te beschermen tegen raketaanvallen. Dat zijn immers ook zware schendingen van het internationaal recht. Maar schendingen van internationaal recht door de ene partij, hoe zwaar ook, mogen nooit een rechtvaardiging zijn voor misbruiken door de andere partij,” zegt Lore Van Welden.
Humanitaire hulp is momenteel bijzonder prangend. Het leven van duizenden Palestijnen hangt er van af. Amnesty International roept de Israëlische autoriteiten met aandrang op om een einde te maken aan de blokkade van Gaza zodat voedsel, medische hulp en brandstof door hulporganisaties geleverd kunnen worden. Enkel zo kan er een einde komen aan deze humanitaire catastrofe en kunnen Palestijnen een waardig leven leiden.EINDE BERICHT
”Almost 840 Palestinians died awaiting a permit to leave the besieged enclave for treatment between 2008 and 2021”
Almost 840 Palestinians died awaiting a permit to leave the besieged enclave for treatment between 2008 and 2021
Israeli authorities have rejected a third of medical permit requests for Palestinian minors in the besieged Gaza Strip, almost double the previous year, according to new data.
A report by the Tel Aviv-based Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) found that 32 percent of requests to reach either occupied East Jerusalem, the West Bank or Jordan to receive urgent medical care for children were rejected in 2021, compared with 17 percent in 2020.
Out of 2,578 requests, 812 were either denied passage or have had their applications significantly delayed.
Ghada Majadle, director of the occupied territories department at PHR, said Israel was complicit in “a serious and ongoing crime that is harming patients, especially minors”.
PHR, which relied on figures provided by the Israeli army through freedom of information requests, said there were several reasons for the spike in rejections, including restrictions put in place as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic and the Israeli bombardment of Gaza in May 2021.
In an 11-day bombing campaign, the Israeli army killed 256 Palestinians, including 66 children, and wounded nearly 2,000, including more than 600 children.
Palestinian rockets killed 13 in Israel, including two children.
The Israeli army turns down permit requests when a minor’s guardian’s application is rejected based on unspecified security reasons or due to purported errors in the submitted documents.
At times, this compels minors, as young as mere months old, to leave without a parent.
In one case, the permit of a seven-month-old’s mother was rejected, forcing the baby’s sick grandmother to substitute for her, Majadle told Middle East Eye.
While receiving treatment in Jerusalem, the grandmother’s health worsened and she had to return to Gaza, leaving the baby alone in the hospital.
PHR then petitioned for the mother to come in her place, and she was granted entry after a two-day wait.
“Separating children from their parents during treatment has physical and psychological effects on the patients,” Majadle said.
According to expert medical opinion, children deprived of their parents’ company during treatment respond to medicine slower and less effectively, she added.
‘Arbitrary’ permit system
Under a 15-year-old Israeli-led blockade and repeated bombing campaigns, health infrastructure in the Gaza Strip has been debilitated.
According to the United Nations, chemotherapy, radiation therapy and PET/CT scans are unavailable.
This leaves patients of the two million-strong Palestinian population, who are in need of vital and life-saving medication, with no option but to seek treatment abroad.
However, Israeli authorities – which control Gaza’s airspace, seafront, vehicle and pedestrian access – limit their travel through the Beit Hanoun crossing.
Exceptions are made for what they deem “exceptional humanitarian circumstances”.
Between 2008 and 2022, around 30 percent of patient permits were denied or delayed, with applicants receiving no definitive response by the date of their hospital appointment, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
Of those, 24 percent were cancer patients and 31 percent were children. Between 2018-2021, around 43 percent of children travelled without parents.
WHO also recorded 839 deaths of patients while they were waiting for a permit response from Israel between 2008 and 2021.
In a report published in May, the UN body called on Israel to “end the arbitrary delay and denial of permits for Palestinian patients in need of essential care and ensure unhindered access for patients and their companions throughout the occupied Palestinian territory”.
Majadle said that as the occupying power over Gaza, Israel bears the full responsibility for ensuring the welfare of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
“It’s easier to examine the impact on one segment of society, like children for example,” she said. “But it’s important to highlight that the entire permit regime by the Israeli authorities impacts the health of everyone in Gaza, and to the same extent in the occupied West Bank.”
[26]
ZIE NOOT 22
Reacties uitgeschakeld voor Noten 24 t/m 26/Astrid Essed pakt VOMAR opnieuw
”Heb je wel gehoord van de zeven, de zevenHeb je wel gehoord van de zevensprong Ze zeggen dat ik niet dansen kan Ik kan dansen als een edelman Dat is één, dat is twee, dat is drie Dat is vier, dat is vijf, dat is zes En dat is ze-he-ven!”
Heb je wel gehoord van de zeven, de zeven Heb je wel gehoord van de zevensprong Ze zeggen dat ik niet dansen kan Ik kan dansen als een edelman Dat is één
Heb je wel gehoord van de zeven, de zeven Heb je wel gehoord van de zevensprong Ze zeggen dat ik niet dansen kan Ik kan dansen als een edelman Dat is één, dat is twee
Heb je wel gehoord van de zeven, de zeven Heb je wel gehoord van de zevensprong Ze zeggen dat ik niet dansen kan Ik kan dansen als een edelman Dat is één, dat is twee, dat is drie
Heb je wel gehoord van de zeven, de zeven Heb je wel gehoord van de zevensprong Ze zeggen dat ik niet dansen kan Ik kan dansen als een edelman Dat is één, dat is twee, dat is drie Dat is vier
Heb je wel gehoord van de zeven, de zeven Heb je wel gehoord van de zevensprong Ze zeggen dat ik niet dansen kan Ik kan dansen als een edelman Dat is één, dat is twee, dat is drie Dat is vier, dat is vijf
Heb je wel gehoord van de zeven, de zeven Heb je wel gehoord van de zevensprong Ze zeggen dat ik niet dansen kan Ik kan dansen als een edelman Dat is één, dat is twee, dat is drie Dat is vier, dat is vijf, dat is zes
Heb je wel gehoord van de zeven, de zeven Heb je wel gehoord van de zevensprong Ze zeggen dat ik niet dansen kan Ik kan dansen als een edelman Dat is één, dat is twee, dat is drie Dat is vier, dat is vijf, dat is zes En dat is ze-he-ven!
Reacties uitgeschakeld voor Noten 22 en 23/Astrid Essed pakt VOMAR opnieuw
Met de goedkeuring van een ongekend aantal nieuwe woningen in de illegale Israëlische ‘nederzettingen’ geeft de regering-Netanyahu uitwerking aan haar radicale uitgangspunten. Bijkomende maatregelen kleuren de toekomst nog somberder.
De Israëlische autoriteiten keurden deze week de bouw van 7.157 woningen in de illegale kolonies – ‘nederzettingen’ en ‘buitenposten’ – op de bezette Westelijke Jordaanoever goed. Daarvan kregen er 1.900 definitief groen licht, terwijl 5.257 woningen goedkeuring kregen in de voorlaatste fase van het planningsproces. Hun definitieve goedkeuring is een kwestie van tijd. Het aantal van 7.157 is een record: niet eerder werden in één klap zoveel nieuwe woningen goedgekeurd. Het aantal overstijgt nu al het aantal woningen dat in heel 2022 (4.427) en heel 2021 (3.645) groen licht van de autoriteiten kreeg.
Het besluit is geen verrassing, gezien de beleidsuitgangspunten die het twee maanden geleden aangetreden kabinet-Netanyahu formuleerde. Volgens uitgangspunt nummer 1 heeft ‘het Joodse volk een exclusief en onvervreemdbaar recht op alle delen van het Land Israël’, en zal de regering de kolonisering van al die delen stimuleren, inclusief de bezette Syrische Golan-hoogvlakte en de Palestijnse Westoever, aangeduid met de bijbelse termen ‘Judea en Samaria’.
De nieuwe woningen komen ten goede aan 37 nederzettingen en een vijftal met terugwerkende kracht ‘geautoriseerde’ buitenposten. Ze liggen verspreid over de hele Westoever, blijkt uit een overzicht van Peace Now, de Israëlische waakhond die het illegale koloniseringsproject op de voet volgt. De organisatie berekent dat de uitbreiding neerkomt op een toename van het aantal kolonisten met meer dan 35 duizend; kolonistenhuishoudens tellen gemiddeld ten minste vijf leden. Per 1 januari van dit jaar woonden er volgens Israëls ministerie van Binnenlandse Zaken al 502.991 kolonisten op de Westoever (exclusief Oost-Jeruzalem).
Buitenposten ‘geautoriseerd’
De goedkeuring volgt op het besluit van het Israëlische kabinet van twee weken geleden om tien buitenposten te ‘autoriseren’, ter vergelding van terreuraanslagen door individuele Palestijnen in Jeruzalem. Buitenposten zijn nederzettingen die niet door de Israëlische autoriteiten zijn gepland en goedgekeurd. Ze zijn vaak gesticht door een handvol gezinnen die zich met steun van kolonistenorganisaties in caravans of prefabwoningen op Palestijns land vestigen. Ze zijn niet alleen illegaal onder internationaal recht, zoals de wel geplande nederzettingen, maar ook onder Israëlische wetgeving
Tegen buitenposten worden doorgaans dan ook ontruimings- of sloopbevelen uitgevaardigd, vaak onder druk van Israëlische mensenrechtenorganisaties. Daar blijft het echter bij; slechts bij hoge uitzondering worden buitenposten daadwerkelijk ontmanteld. In de praktijk kunnen ze doorgroeien en worden ze op zeker moment aangesloten op het elektriciteitsnet, de waterleiding en andere infrastructuur.
De tien ‘gelegaliseerde’ buitenposten, waarvan sommige al meer dan twintig jaar geleden werden gesticht, voldoen volgens Peace Now naadloos aan dit beeld. Ze liggen alle geheel of gedeeltelijk op particulier Palestijns land en tegen vrijwel alle woningen zijn lang geleden sloopbevelen uitgevaardigd. Drie van de tien liggen bovendien geheel of gedeeltelijk op militaire oefenterreinen (‘firing zones’), waar de Palestijnse bevolking plaats dient te maken voor het Israëlische leger.
Het meest schrijnende voorbeeld daarvan is de buitenpost Avigayil, die gedeeltelijk in de beruchte Firing Zone 918 ligt, waar duizend inwoners van acht Palestijnse dorpen met deportatie worden bedreigd – zie ook onze petitie. Terwijl de autochtone Palestijnse bevolking dient te vertrekken wegens ‘illegale vestiging op een militair oefenterrein’, wordt de illegale Israëlische buitenpost Avigayil op datzelfde oefenterrein door Israël ‘gelegaliseerd’.
Vijftien nieuwe nederzettingen
Samen met de vijf nu geautoriseerde buitenposten sticht Israël in feite 15 nieuwe nederzettingen in bezet Palestijns gebied, schrijft Peace Now. Dat is des te ernstiger daar de buitenposten fors mogen uitbreiden; in meerdere gevallen is sprake van een verveelvoudiging van het aantal inwoners. De Israëlische gewoonte, ook nu toegepast, om de buitenposten als ‘nieuwe wijken’ aan bestaande nederzettingen toe te voegen – een door ons vaker beschreven fenomeen – is volgens de organisatie louter bedoeld om dit feit te maskeren. In veel gevallen liggen de buitenposten kilometers verwijderd van de nederzettingen waarvan zij zogenaamd deel uitmaken.
Peace Now betitelt de Israëlische besluiten van de afgelopen twee weken als ‘de facto annexatie’ van Palestijns grondgebied, bedoeld om het tot wasdom komen van een soevereine Palestijnse staat onmogelijk te maken. De organisatie waarschuwt eens te meer dat de Israëlische kolonisering een oorlogsmisdaad is en bovendien neerkomt op de misdaad van apartheid:
De jure annexatie
De recente besluiten zijn niet de enige alarmerende ontwikkeling, waarschuwt Peace Now. Als kers op de taart besloten de Israëlische autoriteiten eergisteren om een plan voor de bouw van een nieuwe nederzetting in het E1-gebied (East One) uit de mottenballen te halen. Het plan behelst de bouw van 3.412 woningen in het gebied, waar ook het met deportatie bedreigde bedoeïnendorp Khan al-Ahmar ligt, en vormt ‘een fatale klap’ voor het perspectief op een Palestijnse staat, aldus Peace Now. Het plan was onder druk van de internationale gemeenschap van tafel verdwenen, maar wordt op 27 maart opnieuw besproken.
Minstens zo alarmerend is de toekenning, eveneens eergisteren, van vérgaande bevoegdheden met betrekking tot de nederzettingen aan minister van Financiën Bezalel Smotrich van de partij Religieus Zionisme. Tijdens de kabinetsformatie eiste de ultranationalist Smotrich die bevoegdheden op, en met dat doel werd binnen het ministerie van Defensie een speciale ministerspost voor hem gecreëerd, die nu formele afbakening kreeg.
Smotrich en zijn partij zijn fervente voorstanders van Israëlische annexatie van de Westoever, zonder toekenning van gelijke rechten aan de Palestijnse bevolking. Het verder uitbreiden van de nederzettingen en het in overeenstemming brengen van de wettelijke status van de kolonisten met die van de Israëlische bevolking zijn concrete doelen waarvan Smotrich nu voortvarend werk zal gaan maken. Komt hiermee een de jure annexatie van (delen van) de Westoever al nadrukkelijk in het vizier, de overdracht van verantwoordelijkheden van de militaire autoriteiten naar Smotrich komt daar hoe dan ook op neer, betoogt de bekende Israëlische advocaat Michael Sfard.
Religieus extremisme
Illustratief voor Smotrich en zijn missie is dat hij twee weken geleden spoorslags afreisde naar de juist geautoriseerde buitenpost Givat Harel, om de heuglijke mijlpaal met gebed en vertier te vieren met zijn vriend Shivi Drori, de stichter van de buitenpost. De geschiedenis van de buitenpost, deze week belicht in een artikel van Associated Press (AP), is kenmerkend voor de ontwikkeling van het Israëlische koloniseringsproject op de Westoever.
Drori plaatste in 1998 drie caravans op een heuveltop, gehoor gevend aan de oproep van toenmalig minister van Buitenlandse Zaken Ariël Sharon om ‘te rennen en zoveel mogelijk heuveltoppen in te nemen om de nederzettingen uit te breiden, want alles wat we nu pakken zal van ons blijven’. De Israëlische overheid en de lokale kolonistenraad – de Binyamin Regional Council – zorgden ervoor dat de buitenpost werd aangesloten op het elektriciteitsnet, de waterleiding en het wegennet, en bewaking kreeg van Israëlische militairen.
Hoewel tegen de woningen sloopbevelen werden uitgevaardigd, kon Givat Harel onbelemmerd uitgroeien tot een goed onderhouden dorp met negentig gezinnen en een bloeiende, door Drori bestierde wijnmakerij (Gva’ot), die volgens AP jaarlijks 100 duizend flessen exporteert. De wijngaarden liggen deels op land dat toebehoort aan de Palestijnse dorpen Sinjil en Qaryut.
De inwoners van het iets lager gelegen Palestijnse dorp Turmus Aya, dat de afgelopen decennia delen van zijn land geconfisqueerd zag door de Israëlische nederzettingen Shiloh en Shvut Rachel, gaan gebukt onder de bekende kolonistenterreur, zo blijkt uit het AP-artikel. Zij zien de autorisatie van de buitenpost als een veeg teken, maar moeten volgens Drori niet zeuren: ‘als ze hier willen blijven’ hebben ze zich te voegen naar de besluiten van de Israëlische regering, punt uit.
Drori beschouwt zichzelf als een ‘pionier’ in een vijandig, maar door God aan de Joden beloofd land. In die opvatting is het overnemen van het hele voormalige mandaatgebied Palestina – from the River to the Sea – niets minder dan een goddelijke opdracht. Het is een extremistische visie die door Smotrich, zelf woonachtig in de nederzetting Kedumin, en veel kolonisten wordt gedeeld, en die direct na het begin van de Israëlische bezetting in 1967 de motor vormde achter de start van het illegale koloniseringsproject.
JERUZALEM – Israël wil bijna 4500 nieuwe woningen bouwen voor kolonisten op de Westelijke Jordaanoever. De regering heeft de plannen donderdag goedgekeurd volgens Peace Now, een groep die tegen de Israëlische nederzettingen is. Wanneer de bouw van de huizen zal beginnen is nog niet bekend.
De minister van Binnenlandse Zaken Ayelet Shaked reageerde door het “een feestelijke dag voor de nederzettingen op Judea en Samaria” te noemen, de Bijbelse benamingen voor het gebied op de Westelijke Jordaanoever.
Internationale kritiek
Vorige week kondigde Shaked al aan met plannen voor nieuwe woningen te komen. Dat kwam haar op veel internationale kritiek te staan, onder anderen van de Amerikaanse president Joe Biden.
De Palestijnse autoriteiten roepen de internationale gemeenschap op “stappen tegen Israël te ondernemen om de nederzettingen en agressie tegen het Palestijnse volk te stoppen”. De meeste landen beschouwen de Israëlische nederzettingen op de Westelijke Jordaanoever als illegaal. In de nederzettingen wonen naar schatting 470.000 Israëliërs.
”En zoals u zult weten, zijn kolonisten bewoners van in bezet gebied gestichtenederzettingen, die illegaal zijn volgens het Internationaal Recht [4] EN regelrechte landdiefstal, omdat zij worden gebouwd op gestolenPalestijns land of, zoals in het geval van Oost-Jeruzalem bij die uitgezettePalestijnse families, gestolen Palestijnse huizen.Waarbij Israelische kolonisten vaak ook nog eens verantwoordelijk zijnvoor bijna dagelijks geweld tegen de bezette Palestijnse bevolking! [5]”
SUPERMARKT VOMAR, STOP MET DE VERKOOP VAN ISRAELISCHE
ISRAELISCHE NEDERZETTINGEN, ILLEGAAL VOLGENS HET INTERNATIONAAL RECHT
”It is unlawful under the Fourth Geneva Convention for an occupying power to transfer parts of its own population into the territory it occupies. This means that international humanitarian law prohibits the establishment of settlements, as these are a form of population transfer into occupied territory”
When a territory is placed under the authority of a hostile army, the rules of international humanitarian law dealing with occupation apply. Occupation confers certain rights and obligations on the occupying power.
Prohibited actions include forcibly transferring protected persons from the occupied territories to the territory of the occupying power. It is unlawful under the Fourth Geneva Convention for an occupying power to transfer parts of its own population into the territory it occupies. This means that international humanitarian law prohibits the establishment of settlements, as these are a form of population transfer into occupied territory. Any measure designed to expand or consolidate settlements is also illegal. Confiscation of land to build or expand settlements is similarly prohibited.
”The establishment of the settlements contravenes international humanitarian law (IHL), which states that an occupying power may not relocate its own citizens to the occupied territory or make permanent changes to that territory, unless these are needed for imperative military needs, in the narrow sense of the term, or undertaken for the benefit of the local population.”
From 1967 to the end of 2017, more than 200 Israeli settlements were established in the West Bank. They include:
131 settlements officially recognized by the Israeli Ministry of the Interior;
About 110 settlements built without official authorization but with governmental support and assistance (known as “illegal outposts”);
Several settlement enclaves inside the city of Hebron;
11 neighborhoods in the areas of the West Bank that Israel annexed to the municipal jurisdiction of Jerusalem in 1967, and several settlement enclaves within Palestinian neighborhoods in East Jerusalem.
Another 16 settlements that had been established in the Gaza Strip, and four in the northern West Bank, were dismantled in 2005 as part of the Disengagement Plan.
Settlements are the single most important element shaping life in the West Bank. Their destructive impact on the human rights of Palestinians far exceeds the hundreds of thousands of dunams seized to build them.
More than 620,000 Israeli citizens currently reside in settlements. Of these, about 209,270 live in the parts of the West Bank that Israel annexed to the municipal jurisdiction of Jerusalem (according to Jerusalem Institute for Policy Research figures from late 2016), and 413,400 live throughout the rest of the West Bank (according to Central Bureau of Statistics figures from late 2017).
The settlements are the single most important factor in shaping life in the West Bank. Their destructive impact on the human rights of Palestinians extends far beyond the hundreds of thousands of dunams [1 dunam = 1,000 sq. meters], including farmland and grazing areas, that Israel appropriated from Palestinians in order to build them. More land has been expropriated to pave hundreds of kilometers of roads for settler use only; roadblocks, checkpoints, and other measures that limit Palestinian movement only have been erected based on the location of settlements; Palestinian landowners have been effectively denied access to much of their farmland, both within settlements and outside them; and the winding route of the Separation Barrier, which severely violates the rights of Palestinians living near it, was established inside the West Bank in order to leave as many settlements as possible – and large tracts of land for expanding them – on the western side of the barrier.
All the settlement practices in the West Bank share the same objective, although those employed in the urban areas of Hebron and East Jerusalem – where Palestinians have also been dispossessed of their homes and of other structures – take a different form.
In the early years of the occupation, the main ploy that Israel used to take over land for building settlements was to seize the land “for military purposes”. Military seizure orders were issued for some 31,000 dunams, most of which were earmarked for building settlements. In June 1979, the military issued a seizure order for privately-owned land near Nablus, which was slated for establishing the settlement of Elon Moreh. Several Palestinians petitioned Israel’s High Court of Justice (HCJ), arguing that the seizure violated international law, since it served a civilian purpose of building a settlement rather than true military needs. The court had rejected this argument in previous petitions, accepting the state’s claim that settlements contribute to security.
In this case, however, top security officials stated that building a settlement at that location would serve no military purpose. Also, some of the settlers joined the proceedings as respondents, explaining to the court that it was their intention to settle in the area permanently, for religious and political reasons, rather than to promote security. Given these unique circumstances, the court could not rule that the establishment of the settlement would serve military needs – although it did not rule out such a possibility in general. The justices restricted their decision to the specific case of Elon Moreh, ruling that the land seizure was meant to serve a civilian rather than military purpose and therefore breached international law. The court did not completely deny the possibility of seizing private land for building settlements, but held that when the dominant reason for issuing a seizure order is the establishment of a civilian settlement rather than military considerations, the order is unlawful.
This ruling made it difficult for Israel to continue seizing Palestinian land as it had done until that point. Instead, it required the state to obtain agreement between top security officials on the military advantage of every planned settlement, and to ensure that the settlers kept their intentions to themselves. To circumvent this, the government announced that it would thereafter build settlements only on land that had been declared state land.
However, when the state sought such land, it discovered that only some 687,000 dunams were considered state land at the time, mostly in the Jordan Valley and in the Judean Desert. This frustrated the governmental plan to build settlements along the central mountain ridge of the West Bank. Therefore, the state came up with a new system for declaring state land.
This system was founded on rewriting legal provisions and applying a completely different approach to the Ottoman Land Code, which governs land ownership in the West Bank, than the standard interpretation applied until then. The new approach made it much easier to declare state land, even when the land in question was considered private or collective Palestinian property under British and later Jordanian rule. One method for achieving this was requiring Palestinians to regularly cultivate farmland as a prerequisite to acquiring ownership rights; another was to disregard the provisions of local law, which grants Palestinian communities collective rights to use grazing areas and other public land. By employing these new tactics, from 1979 to 2002 Israel declared more than 900,000 dunams as state land. There are now some 1,200,000 dunams of state land in Area C, constituting 36.5% of Area C and 22% of the entire West Bank. An additional 200,000 dunams of state land are located in areas A and B, where planning is in the hands of the Palestinian Authority.
A comparative survey carried out by B’Tselem in the area of Ramallah revealed massive differences between the amount of land that Jordan defined as government property in areas registered before the occupation, and the amount that Israel declared state land in areas that the Jordanians had not managed to register prior to 1967. The results of the survey indicate that a significant proportion of the land that Israel declared as state land is actually private Palestinian property that was taken from its lawful owners through legal maneuvering, in breach of both local and international law.
This process of land takeover also contravenes basic tenets of due process and natural justice. In many cases, the Palestinian residents were not aware that their land had been registered as state property and when they found out, it was too late to appeal. The burden of proof always lies with Palestinians claiming ownership; even if landowners did manage to prove their ownership over the land, in some cases it was registered state land based on the claim that it had been handed over to a settlement “in good faith”.
Even if all the declarations of state land were lawful, public land – including the land declared as government property prior to 1967 – is meant to serve the population of the occupied territory, i.e. the Palestinian public, not the State of Israel or its citizens. However, Israel prohibits Palestinian use of this land almost entirely and considers it Israeli property. In keeping with this policy, Israel has allocated to settlement vast tracts of this “state land”, stretching far beyond their built-up sections. The lands allocated to settlements have been declared closed military zones and are off limits to Palestinians, except by special permit. In contrast, Israeli citizens, Jews from around the world and tourists can enter them freely.
At present, settlements cover 538,130 dunams – almost 10% of the West Bank. Their regional councils control another 1,650,370 dunams, including vast open areas that have not been attached to any particular settlement. This brings the total area under the direct control of settlements to 40% of the West Bank, and 63% of Area C.
Along with this governmental land grab, settlers have exploited the forced separation between Palestinians and their land to build houses, outposts and roads, sow fields and groves, graze livestock and take over natural water sources – all outside the vast areas already allocated to the settlements. This is attended by routine violence against Palestinians. These actions play a major role in the implementation of Israel’s policy in the West Bank by complementing official measures. The settlers’ apparently independent actions serve as a privatized system for taking over land, allowing Israel to establish and expand entire settlement blocs through an unofficial sidetrack while formally disavowing these actions.
Unlike the restrictive planning policy enforced upon Palestinian communities, Israeli settlements are fully represented in the planning process, enjoying detailed outline plans and advanced infrastructure. Although the state uses the same professional and legal terms to refer to both Israeli and Palestinian construction in the West Bank with– such as building and planning laws, urban master plans, planning procedures and illegal construction – it applies them very differently in practice. When it comes to Israeli settlements, the state turns a blind eye and offers support and retroactive approval, all as part of an overarching policy to de facto annex parts of the West Bank to Israel’s sovereign territory. Palestinian communities, on the other hand, are subjected to painstaking bureaucracy, stalled plans and widespread demolitions, in keeping with Israel’s policy to prevent Palestinian development in the West Bank and continue dispossessing Palestinians of their land.
The establishment of the settlements contravenes international humanitarian law (IHL), which states that an occupying power may not relocate its own citizens to the occupied territory or make permanent changes to that territory, unless these are needed for imperative military needs, in the narrow sense of the term, or undertaken for the benefit of the local population.
The existence of settlements also leads to the violation of many human rights of Palestinians, including the rights to property, equality, an adequate standard of living and freedom of movement. In addition, the radical changes that Israel has made to the map of the West Bank preclude any real possibility of establishing an independent, viable Palestinian state in fulfilment of the right to self-determination. Although the West Bank is not part of Israel’s sovereign territory, Israeli has applied most of its domestic laws to the settlements and their residents. As a result, the settlers enjoy almost all the same privileges as citizens living within Israel. Meanwhile, Palestinians continue to live under martial law and are thereby systematically deprived of their rights and denied the ability to have any real impact on policymaking with respect to the territory in which they live. In creating this reality, Israel has formed a regime in which a person’s rights depend on his or her national identity.
Israel has refrained from formally annexing the West Bank (except in East Jerusalem). In practice, however, it treats the settlements established throughout Area C as extensions of its sovereign territory and has virtually eliminated the distinction for Israeli citizens – while concentrating the Palestinian population in 165 disconnected “islands” (Areas A and B). This double movement, of Israeli settlers taking over more and more West Bank land and Palestinians being pushed aside, has been a consistent mainstay of Israeli policy in the West Bank since 1967, with all Israeli legislative, legal, planning, funding and defense bodies working towards that end.
On 5 August, Israel launched an offensive on the Gaza Strip targeting the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and its armed wing, destroying or damaging some 1,700 Palestinian homes and displacing hundreds of civilians.”
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”On 7 August, an Israeli missile, apparently fired by a drone, hit Al-Falluja cemetery in Jabalia refugee camp, killing five children and injuring one, in an apparent direct attack on civilians or indiscriminate attack”
ARMED CONFLICT BETWEEN ISRAEL AND
PALESTINIAN ARMED GROUPS IN GAZA
”Israeli forces killed 151 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and injured 9,875, according to OCHA-OPT, amid a surge of military incursions that involved excessive use of force, including unlawful killings and apparent extrajudicial executions.4 Defense for Children International-Palestine reported that Israeli forces or settlers killed 36 children across the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
On 11 May, Israeli soldiers killed Shirin Abu Akleh, a Palestinian-US Al Jazeera correspondent, and injured her colleague, while they were covering an Israeli army raid in Jenin Camp. In September, the Israeli authorities admitted that an Israeli soldier “likely” killed the journalist but concluded that no criminal offence had been committed.”
Israel’s continuing oppressive and discriminatory system of governing Palestinians in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) constituted a system of apartheid, and Israeli officials committed the crime of apartheid under international law. Israeli forces launched a three-day offensive on the occupied Gaza Strip in August during which they committed apparent war crimes. This compounded the impact of a 15-year ongoing Israeli blockade that amounts to illegal collective punishment and further fragments Palestinian territory. Israel escalated its crackdown on Palestinians’ freedom of association. It also imposed arbitrary restrictions on freedom of movement and closures that amounted to collective punishment, mainly in the northern West Bank, ostensibly in response to armed attacks by Palestinians on Israeli soldiers and settlers. The year saw a rise in the number of Palestinians unlawfully killed and seriously injured by Israeli forces during raids in the West Bank. Administrative detentions of Palestinians hit a 14-year high, and torture and other ill-treatment continued. Israeli forces demolished al-Araqib village in the Negev/Naqab for the 211th time. A further 35 Palestinian-Bedouin towns in Israel were still denied formal recognition and residents faced possible forcible transfer. Authorities failed to process asylum claims for thousands of asylum seekers, and imposed restrictions on their right to work.
Background
In March, the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in the OPT determined that the “political system of entrenched rule” in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip “satisfies the prevailing evidentiary standard for the existence of apartheid”. In November, the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing reached the same conclusion in relation to Israel’s policies of home demolitions. Some states, including South Africa, condemned Israeli apartheid, echoing statements by Palestinian, Israeli and international human rights organizations. Despite this growing recognition, Israel continued to enjoy impunity thanks to the support of its key allies.
In October, the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and in Israel, concluded that the occupation of the OPT is unlawful due to its permanence and Israel’s measures to annex Palestinian land in law and in practice. In 2022, such measures included retroactive authorization of settlement outposts, including by the Israeli Supreme Court.
In November, Israel held its fifth elections in three years after the collapse of an ideologically diverse coalition government, which continued to discriminate against Palestinians on both sides of the Green Line. The vote was polarized between those supporting and opposing former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, while consensus on maintaining Israel’s occupation of Palestinian and Syrian territories remained. The right-wing bloc, led by Benjamin Netanyahu and a religious-nationalist coalition, secured a majority of seats and formed a government in December.
Apartheid
In February, Amnesty International released a 280-page report showing how Israel was imposing an institutionalized regime of oppression and domination against the Palestinian people wherever it exercised control over their rights, fragmenting and segregating Palestinian citizens of Israel, residents of the OPT and Palestinian refugees denied the right of return. Through massive seizures of land and property, unlawful killings, infliction of serious injuries, forcible transfers, arbitrary restrictions on freedom of movement, and denial of nationality, among other inhuman or inhumane acts, Israeli officials would be responsible for the crime against humanity of apartheid, which falls under the jurisdiction of the ICC.1
In March, Israeli authorities re-enacted the Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law (temporary order) that imposes sweeping restrictions on Palestinian family unification between Israeli citizens or residents and their spouses from the OPT to maintain a Jewish demographic majority.
In July, the Israeli Supreme Court upheld a law authorizing the interior minister to strip citizens of their citizenship if convicted of acts that amount to “breach of allegiance to the state”. Since its enactment in 2008, application of the law has only been considered against Palestinian citizens. On 20 September, the Israeli Appeals Tribunal approved the revocation of stay or temporary residency permits of 10 Palestinians – four children, three women and three men – living in Jerusalem because they are distant relatives of a Palestinian assailant. On 18 December, Israel deported French-Palestinian human rights defender Salah Hammouri following the revocation of his East Jerusalem residency.2
Unlawful attacks and killings
Armed conflict between Israel and Palestinian armed groups in Gaza
On 5 August, Israel launched an offensive on the Gaza Strip targeting the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and its armed wing, destroying or damaging some 1,700 Palestinian homes and displacing hundreds of civilians. The Israeli army and Palestinian armed groups committed apparent war crimes during the three days of fighting. (See State of Palestine entry.)3
According to the UN, 49 Palestinians were killed, including 31 civilians. Amnesty International established that Israeli forces killed 17 of the civilians, including eight children. Seven civilians, including four children, were killed by a rocket that misfired apparently launched by a Palestinian armed group. On 7 August, an Israeli missile, apparently fired by a drone, hit Al-Falluja cemetery in Jabalia refugee camp, killing five children and injuring one, in an apparent direct attack on civilians or indiscriminate attack.
West Bank
Israeli forces killed 151 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and injured 9,875, according to OCHA-OPT, amid a surge of military incursions that involved excessive use of force, including unlawful killings and apparent extrajudicial executions.4 Defense for Children International-Palestine reported that Israeli forces or settlers killed 36 children across the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
On 11 May, Israeli soldiers killed Shirin Abu Akleh, a Palestinian-US Al Jazeera correspondent, and injured her colleague, while they were covering an Israeli army raid in Jenin Camp. In September, the Israeli authorities admitted that an Israeli soldier “likely” killed the journalist but concluded that no criminal offence had been committed.
Right to truth, justice and reparation
Israeli authorities continued to refuse to cooperate with the investigation by the ICC Office of the Prosecutor, despite a 2021 decision by the ICC to initiate an investigation into the situation in Palestine. The authorities also failed to adequately investigate violations and crimes under international law.
Freedom of movement
In the West Bank, 175 permanent checkpoints and other roadblocks, as well as scores of temporary irregular barriers and a draconian permit regime, supported by a repressive biometric surveillance system, continued to control and fragment Palestinian communities.
In October, Israeli authorities placed additional restrictions on freedom of movement in the occupied West Bank reportedly in response to Palestinian attacks on Israeli soldiers and civilians, through sweeping and arbitrary closures that severely disrupted everyday life and amounted to unlawful collective punishment. In April, the Israeli army closed checkpoints into Jenin in a move that appeared designed to stifle Jenin’s businesses and trade with Palestinian citizens of Israel. In October, Israeli forces re-imposed a closure on Jenin and closed off Nablus for three weeks, and Shufat refugee camp in occupied East Jerusalem for over a week, gravely affecting the freedom of movement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians living in those areas and restricting access to medical aid and other essential services.
According to COGAT, a unit of the defence ministry, Israel revoked the permits to work in Israel of 2,500 Palestinians as a means of collective punishment.
A new procedure issued by the Israeli military authorities came into effect in October, restricting the ability of foreign passport holders to live with their Palestinian spouses in the West Bank by limiting their visas to a maximum of six months, requiring couples to request permanent residency status in the West Bank, which is subject to Israeli approval.
In Gaza, the illegal Israeli blockade entered its 16th year. According to Gaza-based human rights organization Al-Mezan, nine patients, including three children, died while waiting for Israeli permits to receive life-saving treatment outside of the Gaza Strip, amid a complex bureaucratic entanglement between Israel, the Palestinian Authority and the Hamas administration.
The only power plant in Gaza was forced to shut for two days in August because of a week-long Israeli closure of all crossings, which prevented the delivery of fuel.
Forced evictions
Tens of thousands of Palestinians remained at risk of forced evictions in Israel and the OPT, including some 5,000 living in shepherding communities in the Jordan Valley and South Hebron Hills. Israeli authorities demolished 952 Palestinian structures across the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, displacing 1,031 Palestinians, and affecting the livelihoods of thousands of others.
On 4 May, the Israeli Supreme Court upheld a decision to forcibly transfer over 1,000 residents of Masafer Yatta in the South Hebron Hills from their ancestral land, which Israel had designated as “firing zone 918”, a military training zone closed to Palestinian access.
In July, the Israeli Supreme Court legalized the settlement outpost of Mitzpe Kramim, built on private Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank, claiming that it was “purchased in good faith”. This reversed its 2020 decision that ordered the government to evacuate the outpost.
According to OCHA, 2022 was the sixth consecutive year that saw an increase in state-backed settler violence against Palestinians in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, reaching a peak in October during the olive harvest season. The Israeli army and police continued to fail to investigate complaints by Palestinians about such violence.
In Israel, the authorities continued to deny official recognition to 35 Palestinian villages in the Negev/Naqab, depriving them of essential services. In January, the Israeli Land Authority and the Jewish National Fund began planting trees on lands belonging to the village of Saawa al-Atrash in the Negev/Naqab to forcibly transfer its Palestinian population.
In December, Israeli authorities demolished tents and structures in al-Araqib for the 211th time since 2010.
Arbitrary detention
Israeli authorities increased their use of administrative detention, prompting a mass boycott of Israeli military courts by hundreds of detainees including Salah Hammouri, who went on hunger strike together with 29 others in protest at their detention without charge or trial. By 31 December, 866 individuals, all but two of them Palestinians, were administratively detained, the highest number in 14 years.
On 15 April, Israeli police arrested more than 400 Palestinians, including children, journalists and worshippers, during a raid on the al-Aqsa mosque compound in the Old City of Jerusalem. According to the Palestinian Red Crescent, at least 152 Palestinians were injured by rubber bullets, live ammunition and stun grenades, and were beaten. Most were released after several hours.
Torture and other ill-treatment
Israeli forces continued to subject Palestinian detainees to torture and other ill-treatment. As in previous years, the internal investigation unit of the police, Mahash, failed to properly investigate complaints of torture. On 24 November, the Beersheba District Court extended, by four months, the solitary confinement of Ahmad Manasra, imprisoned as a 13-year-old in 2015 and held in solitary confinement since November 2021, an act that amounts to torture. The same court had rejected in September his appeal for early release on medical grounds despite his severe mental health condition.
Freedom of association and expression
On 18 August, Israeli soldiers raided the offices of seven Palestinian civil society organizations in Ramallah, vandalizing equipment, seizing files, and issuing closure orders based on the 1945 Defense (Emergency) Regulations.5
On 29 September, the Israeli Central Elections Committee disqualified the Palestinian party Balad from running in Israeli parliamentary elections because it called for a “state for all of its citizens”, in violation of Israel’s Basic Law. The Israeli Supreme Court reversed the decision in October.
On 24 November, the Israeli military renewed by 45 days and for the fourth time the detention of four Jewish Israeli teenagers – Einat Gerlitz, Evyatar Moshe Rubin, Nave Shabtay and Shahar Schwartz – who were first imprisoned in September for refusing, on grounds of conscience, to enrol in compulsory military service.
Failure to tackle climate crisis and environmental degradation
On 28 June, the government introduced a climate bill, which proposed to reduce Israel’s greenhouse gas emissions by 27% by 2030. The bill remained pending. Meanwhile, Israel’s military industrial complex, including its August offensive in Gaza, exacerbated environmental damage caused in previous attacks that Israel continued to disregard.
In March, Israeli planes resumed aerial spraying of herbicides on the buffer zone in the Gaza Strip, damaging Palestinian farmland.
LGBTI people’s rights
On 14 February, Israel’s health ministry published a circular banning medical practitioners from conducting medical “conversion therapy” to change the sexual orientation of gay and lesbian individuals, but failed to grant it legislative status.
Women’s rights
In Israel, marriage and divorce remained under the exclusive jurisdiction of religious courts, leading to systematic discrimination against women in personal status matters.
Despite legal protections against domestic violence, 24 women were killed by partners or relatives according to the Israeli police. Some 69 women were killed between January 2020 and August 2022. Of the 40 femicides against Palestinian women in Israel during that period, 58% were not resolved by the police while all 29 femicides of Jewish-Israeli women in the same period were resolved.
Refugees’ and migrants’ rights
Israel welcomed tens of thousands of people fleeing Ukraine and allowed thousands of Jewish Ukrainians to settle under the 1950 Law of Return, while continuing to deny Palestinian refugees their right of return.
Israel continued to reject asylum applications of nearly 30,000 African asylum seekers, primarily from Eritrea and Sudan. Following a 2021 court decision, over 2,000 Sudanese asylum seekers from Darfur, Blue Nile and the Nuba mountains were given temporary residence permits, including access to national health insurance and other benefits.
In October, a commission appointed by Israel’s minister of interior concluded that asylum seekers from Darfur and the Nuba mountains were no longer at risk of persecution on ethnic grounds and could be returned safely to Sudan’s capital Khartoum, amid concerns of a possible reversal of Israel’s general non-deportation policy.
Government regulations banning some 20,000 asylum seekers from work in 17 Israeli cities unless they seek employment in construction, agriculture, hospitality and institutional nursing, came into effect in October.
Administratieve detentie is gevangenhouding zonder tussenkomst van een rechter, op grond van een beschikking door de politie of een overheidsinstelling.
Administratieve detentie heeft in het Westen in de regel de vorm van korte perioden van voorarrest. Binnen enkele dagen moet de rechter beoordelen of de gevangenhouding rechtmatig is. In de vreemdelingendetentie kan dat echter veel langer duren. In Nederland toetst een rechter die detentie van illegale, ongedocumenteerde of van criminaliteit verdachte vreemdelingen na zes weken, of als een advocaat bezwaar aantekent na een week of twee.
China
In veel niet-westerse landen is administratieve detentie heel verbreid en kan ze maanden of jaren duren. Zo waren er China in 2006 naar verluidt meer dan 300.000 mensen opgesloten in werkkampen, voor een periode van twee of drie jaar, op last van de politie en zonder dat er een rechter aan te pas was gekomen. In 2013 kondigde de Chinese regering aan het stelsel van ‘heropvoeding door arbeid’ (laojiao) te zullen afschaffen, maar veel vormen van administratieve detentie bleven bestaan.
Andere niet-westerse landen
In het gevangenkamp Guantánamo Bay hielden de VS vanaf januari 2002 meer dan zevenhonderd verdachten van terrorisme gevangen, zonder proces. In 2022 zitten er nog mensen gevangen in Guantánamo. In Franstalige Afrikaanse landen is de garde à vue een vorm van administratieve detentie, dan wel van langdurig voorarrest. Andere landen die Amnesty heeft aangeklaagd voor praktijken van massale en langdurige administratieve detentie zijn onder meer Egypte, India en Israël. De VN kent een Werkgroep voor Willekeurige Detentie.
In administrative detention, a person is held without trial without having committed an offense, on the grounds that he or she plans to break the law in the future. As this measure is supposed to be preventive, it has no time limit. The person is detained without legal proceedings, by order of the regional military commander, based on classified evidence that is not revealed to them. This leaves the detainees helpless – facing unknown allegations with no way to disprove them, not knowing when they will be released, and without being charged, tried or convicted.
In the West Bank (not including East Jerusalem), administrative detention is carried out under the Order regarding Security Provisions. The order empowers the military commander of the West Bank, or another commander to whom the power has been delegated, to place individuals in administrative detention for up to six months at a time, if the commander has “reasonable grounds to believe that reasons of regional security or public security require that a certain person be held in detention”. If, prior to the expiration of the order, the military commander has “reasonable grounds to believe” that the same reasons “still require the retention of the detainee in detention”, he may extend the original order for an additional six-month period “from time to time”. The Order regarding Security Provisions places no limit on the overall time that a person can be held in administrative detention, so the detention can be extended over and over. In practice, this allows Israel to incarcerate Palestinians who have not been convicted of anything for years on end.
Individuals held in administrative detention must be brought before a military judge within eight days – either of the original detention order or of its extension. The judge may uphold the order, reject it, or shorten the period of detention stipulated in it. Whatever decision the military judge makes, both the detainee and the military commander may appeal it to the Military Court of Appeals, and thereafter, to the High Court of Justice (HCJ). Hearings on administrative detention orders are held in camera, and the judges are permitted to set aside ordinary evidence law. In particular, judges may “accept evidence in the absence of the detainee or their counsel and without disclosing it to them”, if they are convinced that disclosing the evidence may “harm regional security or public security”.
Administrative detention of Israeli citizens and residents is carried out under the Emergency Powers (Detentions) Law. Over the years, Israel has used this measure against several Israeli citizens, including settlers. These are isolated cases, and in most of them, the detention lasted a few months. Since Israel “disengaged” from the Gaza Strip in September 2005, it has used the Internment of Unlawful Combatants Law to place Gaza residents under administrative detention. This measure has so far been used in very few cases. The provisions of both these laws are similar in essence to those of the military order that applies in the West Bank.
The Order regarding Security Provisions includes provisions that are ostensibly meant to protect administrative detainees, in keeping with the tenets of international law on this matter, which allow the occupying power to place residents of the occupied territory under administrative detention only in rare, exceptional circumstances. This has not stopped Israel from making extensive use of this measure in the Occupied Territories. Israel routinely uses administrative detention and has, over the years, placed thousands of Palestinians behind by bars for periods ranging from several months to several years, without charging them, without telling them what they are accused of, and without disclosing the alleged evidence to them or to their lawyers. Some of the detainees were under 18 years of age.
During the first and second intifadas, Israel held many hundreds of Palestinians in administrative detention, and the figure crossed the 1,000 mark several times in 2003 (during the second intifada). Yet the widespread use of this extreme measure is not confined to those periods: Since March 2002, not a single month has gone by without Israel holding at least 100 Palestinians in administrative detention.
Moreover, in some cases, the authorities use administrative detention as a quick and easy alternative to criminal trial, rather than to prevent future danger. This occurs primarily when they do not have sufficient evidence for indictment, or when they do not want to reveal the evidence they allegedly possess. This use of administrative detention is absolutely prohibited and totally blurs the distinction between an administrative proceeding that is intended as a prospective, preventive measure, and a criminal proceeding, whose purpose is punitive and retroactive. Israel also exploits this measure to detain Palestinians for their political opinions and for engaging in non-violent political activity.
In addition, the restriction in the Order regarding Security Provisions on the duration of administrative detention is meaningless, as the detention may be extended over and over with no time limit. Such extensions are not rare. At the end of May 2017, for instance, 475 Palestinians were being held under administrative detention in Israel Prison Service facilities. Of these, 128 had been held for six to twelve months, meaning their detention had been extended at least once, and 121 had been held for more than a year, meaning their detention had been extended at least twice.
The military order does require that detainees be brought before a judge, but this does little to prevent abuse of this measure, and the judicial proceedings on administrative detention are mostly a façade of judicial review. In the vast majority of cases, the judges accept the prosecution’s position and approve the detention order.
According to figures provided by the IDF Spokesperson, from the beginning of 2015 to the end of July 2017, 3,909 administrative detention orders were issued. Of these, 2,441 (62.4%) were extensions of existing orders. Only 48 (1.2%) were cancelled by a military court. The remaining detention orders were approved, as follows:
2,953 (75.5%) were approved with no amendments or limitations.
In 390 cases (9.9%), the judges instructed that the orders be shortened, yet placed no limitation on the possibility of renewing them.
In 501 (12.8%) cases, the judges approved the orders, in some cases shortening them, but stipulated that they could only be extended if new information came to light – which, again, would not be disclosed to the detainee.
(Note: The discrepancy between the total number of orders and the number of court decisions appears in the original. Moreover, despite our request, the IDF Spokesperson did not provide B’Tselem with figures concerning the Military Court of Appeals).
Moreover, the judges always accept the prosecution’s demand that the evidence remain confidential for “reasons of national security”. By following this practice, the judges turn the exception provided for in the administrative detention order into a rule that denies detainees any possibility of mounting a defense against the allegations. The secrecy of the evidence prevents detainees and their counsel from examining the quality, veracity and relevance of the information used against them. True, the military judges and the HCJ justices have stated that, given the confidentiality, they must fill the void and act as defense for the detainees. However, this statement is not followed up in practice. In the overwhelming majority of cases, the judges do not ask to see the ISA’s information, do not examine the military prosecution regarding the information that led to the detention, and simply accept the arguments presented to them as fact.
Moreover, in their judgments on administrative detention, the justices of the HCJ have agreed that this is an “extreme” measure that must be used carefully and in rare exceptions only. They agreed it must be used only for prevention and never for punitive purposes, and only when the danger is posed specifically by the person under detention. They also agreed that administrative detention, like all other measures, is subject to the principle of proportionality and therefore must be used only when the alleged danger cannot be prevented through criminal proceedings or an administrative measure that is less injurious to human rights. Nonetheless, the justices have upheld nearly all the administrative detention orders brought before them.
The power to incarcerate people who have not been convicted or even charged with anything for lengthy periods of time, based on secret “evidence” that they cannot challenge, is an extreme power. Israel uses it continuously and extensively, routinely holding hundreds of Palestinians at any given moment. The state makes sure to lend this policy a guise of legality by requiring the courts to review every detention order. In these proceedings, the detainees are represented by counsel; they may appeal the judge’s decision, and the hearings follow procedural and evidentiary rules. However, this is merely a façade of judicial review, as the detainees have no real opportunity to mount a reasonable defense against the allegations. Nevertheless, the courts routinely uphold the detention orders. At the end of the day, the military, the Military Advocate General’s Corps and the State Attorney’s Office, military judges and the justices of the HCJ Court are all complicit in creating this state of affairs.
” The attacks also damaged neighboring structures, made several dozen families homeless, and shuttered scores of businesses that provided livelihoods to many people.”
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” Three of the four buildings were immediately leveled. Although no deaths or injuries of fighters or civilians were reported, the attacks destroyed civilian property worth millions of US dollars.”
The 14-year Israeli closure of Gaza, along with Egyptian border restrictions, has devastated the economy in Gaza. Restrictions on the entry of goods broadly deemed to be “dual-use,” for example, have sharply reduced the population’s access to construction material and certain medical equipment. Unless lifted or substantially eased, the sweeping restrictions on the movement of people and goods will hamper reconstruction efforts.”
”The Israeli government’s plan to remove troops and Jewish settlements from the Gaza Strip would not end Israel’s occupation of the territory. As an occupying power, Israel will retain responsibility for the welfare of Gaza’s civilian population.
Under the “disengagement” plan endorsed Tuesday by the Knesset, Israeli forces will keep control over Gaza’s borders, coastline and airspace, and will reserve the right to launch incursions at will. Israel will continue to wield overwhelming power over the territory’s economy and its access to trade.”
Israeli Government Still Holds Responsibility for Welfare of Civilians
The Israeli government’s plan to remove troops and Jewish settlements from the Gaza Strip would not end Israel’s occupation of the territory. As an occupying power, Israel will retain responsibility for the welfare of Gaza’s civilian population.
Under the “disengagement” plan endorsed Tuesday by the Knesset, Israeli forces will keep control over Gaza’s borders, coastline and airspace, and will reserve the right to launch incursions at will. Israel will continue to wield overwhelming power over the territory’s economy and its access to trade.
“The removal of settlers and most military forces will not end Israel’s control over Gaza,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa Division. “Israel plans to reconfigure its occupation of the territory, but it will remain an occupying power with responsibility for the welfare of the civilian population.”
Under the plan, Israel is scheduled to remove settlers and military bases protecting the settlers from the Gaza Strip and four isolated West Bank Jewish settlements by the end of 2005. The Israeli military will remain deployed on Gaza’s southern border, and will reposition its forces to other areas just outside the territory.
In addition to controlling the borders, coastline and airspace, Israel will continue to control Gaza’s telecommunications, water, electricity and sewage networks, as well as the flow of people and goods into and out of the territory. Gaza will also continue to use Israeli currency.
A World Bank study on the economic effects of the plan determined that “disengagement” would ease restrictions on mobility inside Gaza. But the study also warned that the removal of troops and settlers would have little positive effect unless accompanied by an opening of Gaza’s borders. If the borders are sealed to labor and trade, the plan “would create worse hardship than is seen today.”
The plan also explicitly envisions continued home demolitions by the Israeli military to expand the “buffer zone” along the Gaza-Egypt border. According to a report released last week by Human Rights Watch, the Israeli military has illegally razed nearly 1,600 homes since 2000 to create this buffer zone, displacing some 16,000 Palestinians. Israeli officials have called for the buffer zone to be doubled, which would result in the destruction of one-third of the Rafah refugee camp.
In addition, the plan states that disengagement “will serve to dispel the claims regarding Israel’s responsibility for the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.” A report by legal experts from the Israeli Justice Ministry, Foreign Ministry and the military made public on Sunday, however, reportedly acknowledges that disengagement “does not necessarily exempt Israel from responsibility in the evacuated territories.”
If Israel removes its troops from Gaza, the Palestinian National Authority will maintain responsibility for security within the territory—to the extent that Israel allows Palestinian police the authority and capacity. Palestinian security forces will still have a duty to protect civilians within Gaza and to prevent indiscriminate attacks on Israeli civilians.
“Under international law, the test for determining whether an occupation exists is effective control by a hostile army, not the positioning of troops,” Whitson said. “Whether the Israeli army is inside Gaza or redeployed around its periphery and restricting entrance and exit, it remains in control.”
Under international law, the duties of an occupying power are detailed in the Fourth Geneva Convention and The Hague Regulations. According to The Hague Regulations, a “territory is considered occupied when it is actually placed under the authority of the hostile army. The occupation extends only to the territory where such authority has been established and can be exercised.”
The “disengagement plan,” as adopted by the Israeli Cabinet on June 6, 2004, and endorsed by the Knesset on October 26, is available at:
Israel’s Obligations to Gaza under International Law
Israeli authorities claim “broad powers and discretion to decide who may enter its territory” and that “a foreigner has no legal right to enter the State’s sovereign territory, including for the purposes of transit into the [West Bank] or aboard.” While international human rights law gives wide latitude to governments with regard to entry of foreigners, Israel has heightened obligations toward Gaza residents. Because of the continuing controls Israel exercises over the lives and welfare of Gaza’s inhabitants, Israel remains an occupying power under international humanitarian law, despite withdrawing its military forces and settlements from the territory in 2005”
(Gaza) – Israel’s sweeping restrictions on leaving Gaza deprive its more than two million residents of opportunities to better their lives, Human Rights Watch said today on the fifteenth anniversary of the 2007 closure. The closure has devastated the economy in Gaza, contributed to fragmentation of the Palestinian people, and forms part of Israeli authorities’ crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution against millions of Palestinians.
Israel’s closure policy blocks most Gaza residents from going to the West Bank, preventing professionals, artists, athletes, students, and others from pursuing opportunities within Palestine and from traveling abroad via Israel, restricting their rights to work and an education. Restrictive Egyptian policies at its Rafah crossing with Gaza, including unnecessary delays and mistreatment of travelers, have exacerbated the closure’s harm to human rights.
“Israel, with Egypt’s help, has turned Gaza into an open-air prison,” said Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch. “As many people around the world are once again traveling two years after the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, Gaza’s more than two million Palestinians remain under what amounts to a 15-year-old lockdown.”
Israel should end its generalized ban on travel for Gaza residents and permit free movement of people to and from Gaza, subject to, at most, individual screening and physical searches for security purposes.
Between February 2021 and March 2022, Human Rights Watch interviewed 20 Palestinians who sought to travel out of Gaza via either the Israeli-run Erez crossing or the Egyptian-administered Rafah crossing. Human Rights Watch wrote to Israeli and Egyptian authorities to solicit their perspectives on its findings, and separately to seek information about an Egyptian travel company that operates at the Rafah crossing but had received no responses at this writing.
Since 2007, Israeli authorities have, with narrow exceptions, banned Palestinians from leaving through Erez, the passenger crossing from Gaza into Israel, through which they can reach the West Bank and travel abroad via Jordan. Israel also prevents Palestinian authorities from operating an airport or seaport in Gaza. Israeli authorities also sharply restrict the entry and exit of goods.
They often justify the closure, which came after Hamas seized political control over Gaza from the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority in June 2007, on security grounds. Israeli authorities have said they want to minimize travel between Gaza and the West Bank to prevent the export of “a human terrorist network” from Gaza to the West Bank, which has a porous border with Israel and where hundreds of thousands of Israeli settlers live.
This policy has reduced travel to a fraction of what it was two decades ago, Human Rights Watch said. Israeli authorities have instituted a formal “policy of separation” between Gaza and the West Bank, despite international consensus that these two parts of the Occupied Palestinian Territory form a “single territorial unit.” Israel accepted that principle in the 1995 Oslo Accords, signed with the Palestine Liberation Organization. Israeli authorities restrict all travel between Gaza and the West Bank, even when the travel takes place via the circuitous route through Egypt and Jordan rather than through Israeli territory.
Due to these policies, Palestinian professionals, students, artists, and athletes living in Gaza have missed vital opportunities for advancement not available in Gaza. Human Rights Watch interviewed seven people who said that Israeli authorities did not respond to their requests for travel through Erez, and three others who said Israel rejected their permits, apparently for not fitting within Israeli’s narrow criteria.
Walaa Sada, 31, a filmmaker, said that she applied for permits to take part in film training in the West Bank in 2014 and 2018, after spending years convincing her family to allow her to travel alone, but Israeli authorities never responded to her applications. The hands-on nature of the training, requiring filming live scenes and working in studios, made remote participation impracticable and Sada ended up missing the sessions.
The “world narrowed” when she received these rejections, Sada said, making her feel “stuck in a small box.… For us in Gaza, the hands of the clock stopped. People all over the world can easily and quickly book flight and travel, while we … die waiting for our turn.”
The Egyptian authorities have exacerbated the closure’s impact by restricting movement out of Gaza and at times fully sealing its Rafah border crossing, Gaza’s only outlet aside from Erez to the outside world. Since May 2018, Egyptian authorities have been keeping Rafah open more regularly, making it, amid the sweeping Israeli restrictions, the primary outlet to the outside world for Gaza residents.
Palestinians, however, still face onerous obstacles traveling through Egypt, including having to wait weeks for permission to travel, unless they are willing to pay hundreds of dollars to travel companies with significant ties to Egyptian authorities to expedite their travel, denials of entry, and abuse by Egyptian authorities.
Sada said also received an opportunity to participate in a workshop on screenwriting in Tunisia in 2019, but that she could not afford the US$2000 it would cost her to pay for the service that would ensure that she could travel on time. Her turn to travel came up six weeks later, after the workshop had already been held.
As an occupying power that maintains significant control over many aspects of life in Gaza, Israel has obligations under international humanitarian law to ensure the welfare of the population there. Palestinians also have the right under international human rights law to freedom of movement, in particular within the occupied territory, a right that Israel can restrict under international law only in response to specific security threats.
Israel’s policy, though, presumptively denies free movement to people in Gaza, with narrow exceptions, irrespective of any individualized assessment of the security risk a person may pose. These restrictions on the right to freedom of movement do not meet the requirement of being strictly necessary and proportionate to achieve a lawful objective. Israel has had years and many opportunities to develop more narrowly tailored responses to security threats that minimize restrictions on rights.
Egypt’s legal obligations toward Gaza residents are more limited, as it is not an occupying power. However, as a state party to the Fourth Geneva Convention, it should ensure respect for the convention “in all circumstances,” including protections for civilians living under military occupation who are unable to travel due to unlawful restrictions imposed by the occupying power. The Egyptian authorities should also consider the impact of their border closure on the rights of Palestinians living in Gaza who are unable to travel in and out of Gaza through another route, including the right to leave a country.
Egyptian authorities should lift unreasonable obstacles that restrict Palestinians’ rights and allow transit via its territory, subject to security considerations, and ensure that their decisions are transparent and not arbitrary and take into consideration the human rights of those affected.
“The Gaza closure blocks talented, professional people, with much to give their society, from pursuing opportunities that people elsewhere take for granted,” Shakir said. “Barring Palestinians in Gaza from moving freely within their homeland stunts lives and underscores the cruel reality of apartheid and persecution for millions of Palestinians.”
Israel’s Obligations to Gaza under International Law
Israeli authorities claim “broad powers and discretion to decide who may enter its territory” and that “a foreigner has no legal right to enter the State’s sovereign territory, including for the purposes of transit into the [West Bank] or aboard.” While international human rights law gives wide latitude to governments with regard to entry of foreigners, Israel has heightened obligations toward Gaza residents. Because of the continuing controls Israel exercises over the lives and welfare of Gaza’s inhabitants, Israel remains an occupying power under international humanitarian law, despite withdrawing its military forces and settlements from the territory in 2005. Both the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross, the guardians of international humanitarian law, have reached this determination. As the occupying power, Israel remains bound to provide residents of Gaza the rights and protections afforded to them by the law of occupation. Israeli authorities continue to control Gaza’s territorial waters and airspace, and the movement of people and goods, except at Gaza’s border with Egypt. Israel also controls the Palestinian population registry and the infrastructure upon which Gaza relies.
Israel has an obligation to respect the human rights of Palestinians living in Gaza, including their right to freedom of movement throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory and abroad, which affects both the right to leave a country and the right to enter their own country. Israel is also obligated to respect Palestinians’ rights for which freedom of movement is a precondition, for example the rights to education, work, and health. The UNHuman Rights Committee has said that while states can restrict freedom of movement for security reasons or to protect public health, public order, and the rights of others, any such restrictions must be proportional and “the restrictions must not impair the essence of the right; the relation between the right and restriction, between norm and exception, must not be reversed.”
While the law of occupation permits occupying powers to impose security restrictions on civilians, it also requires them to restore public life for the occupied population. That obligation increases in a prolonged occupation, in which the occupier has more time and opportunity to develop more narrowly tailored responses to security threats that minimize restrictions on rights. In addition, the needs of the occupied population increase over time. Suspending virtually all freedom of movement for a short period interrupts temporarily normal public life, but long-term, indefinite suspension in Gaza has had a much more debilitating impact, fragmentating populations, fraying familial and social ties, compoundingdiscrimination against women, and blocking people from pursuing opportunities to improve their lives.
The impact is particularly damaging given the denial of freedom of movement to people who are confined to a sliver of the occupied territory, unable to interact in person with the majority of the occupied population that lives in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and its rich assortment of educational, cultural, religious, and commercial institutions.
After 55 years of occupation and 15 years of closure in Gaza with no end in sight, Israel should fully respect the human rights of Palestinians, using as a benchmark the rights it grants Israeli citizens. Israel should abandon an approach that bars movement absent exceptional individual humanitarian circumstances it defines, in favor of an approach that permits free movement absent exceptional individual security circumstances.
Israel’s Closure
Most Palestinians who grew up in Gaza under this closure have never left the 40-by-11 kilometer (25-by-7 mile) Gaza Strip. For the last 25 years, Israel has increasingly restricted the movement of Gaza residents. Since June 2007, when Hamas seized control over Gaza from the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority (PA), Gaza has been mostly closed.
Israeli authorities justify this closure on security grounds, in light of “Hamas’ rise to power in the Gaza Strip,” as they lay out in a December 2019 court filing. Authorities highlight in particular the risk that Hamas and armed Palestinian groups will recruit or coerce Gaza residents who have permits to travel via Erez “for the commission of terrorist acts and the transfer of operatives, knowledge, intelligence, funds or equipment for terrorist activists.” Their policy, though, amounts to a blanket denial with rare exceptions, rather than a generalized respect for the right of Palestinians to freedom of movement, to be denied only on the basis of individualized security reasons.
The Israeli army has since 2007 limited travel through the Erez crossing except in what it deems “exceptional humanitarian circumstances,” mainly encompassing those needing vital medical treatment outside Gaza and their companions, although the authorities also make exceptions for hundreds of businesspeople and laborers and some others. Israel has restricted movement even for those seeking to travel under these narrowexceptions, affecting their rights to health and life, among others, as Human Rights Watch and other groups have documented. Most Gaza residents do not fit within these exemptions to travel through Erez, even if it is to reach the West Bank.
Between January 2015 and December 2019, before the onset of Covid-19 restrictions, an average of about 373 Palestinians left Gaza via Erez each day, less than 1.5 percent of the daily average of 26,000 in September 2000, before the closure, according to the Israeli rights group Gisha. Israeli authorities tightened the closure further during the Covid-19 pandemic – between March 2020 and December 2021, an average of about 143 Palestinians left Gaza via Erez each day, according to Gisha.
Israeli authorities announced in March 2022 that they would authorize 20,000 permits for Palestinians in Gaza to work in Israel in construction and agriculture, though Gisha reports that the actual number of valid permits in this category stood at 9,424, as of May 22.
Israeli authorities have also for more than two decades sharply restricted the use by Palestinians of Gaza’s airspace and territorial waters. They blocked the reopening of the airport that Israeli forces made inoperable in January 2002, and prevented the Palestinian authorities from building a seaport, leaving Palestinians dependent on leaving Gaza by land to travel abroad. The few Palestinians permitted to cross at Erez are generally barred from traveling abroad via Israel’s international airport and must instead travel abroad via Jordan. Palestinians wishing to leave Gaza via Erez, either to the West Bank or abroad, submit requests through the Palestinian Civil Affairs Committee in Gaza, which forwards applications to Israeli authorities who decide on whether to grant a permit.
Separation Between Gaza and the West Bank
As part of the closure, Israeli authorities have sought to “differentiate” between their policy approaches to Gaza and the West Bank, such as imposing more sweeping restrictions on the movement of people and goods from Gaza to the West Bank, and promote separation between these two parts of the Occupied Palestinian Territory. The army’s “Procedure for Settlement in the Gaza Strip by Residents of Judea and Samaria,” published in 2018, states that “in 2006, a decision was made to introduce a policy of separation between the Judea and Samaria Area [the West Bank] and the Gaza Strip in light of Hamas’ rise to power in the Gaza Strip. The policy currently in effect is explicitly aimed at reducing travel between the areas.”
In each of the 11 cases Human Rights Watch reviewed of people seeking to reach the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, for professional and educational opportunities not available in Gaza, Israeli authorities did not respond to requests for permits or denied them, either for security reasons or because they did not conform to the closure policy. Human Rights Watch also reviewed permit applications on the website of the Palestinian Civil Affairs Committee, or screenshots of it, including the status of the permit applications, when they were sent on to the Israeli authorities and the response received, if any.
Raed Issa, a 42-year-old artist, said that the Israeli authorities did not respond to his application for a permit in early December 2015, to attend an exhibit of his art at a Ramallah art gallery between December 27 and January 16, 2016.
The “Beyond the Dream” exhibit sought to highlight the situation in Gaza after the 2014 war. Issa said that the Palestinian Civil Affairs committee continued to identify the status of his application as “sent and waiting for response” and he ended up having to attend the opening of the exhibit virtually. Issa felt that not being physically present hampered his ability to engage with audiences, and to network and promote his work, which he believes limited his reach and hurt sales of his artwork. He described feeling pained “that I am doing my own art exhibit in my homeland and not able to attend it, not able to move freely.”
Ashraf Sahweel, 47, chairman of the Board of Directors of the Gaza Center for Art and Culture, said that Gaza-based artists routinely do not hear back after applying for Israeli permits, forcing them to miss opportunities to attend exhibitions and other cultural events. A painter himself, he applied for seven permits between 2013 and 2022, but Israeli authorities either did not respond or denied each application, he said. Sahweel said that he has “given up hope on the possibility to travel via Erez.”
Palestinian athletes in Gaza face similar restrictions when seeking to compete with their counterparts in the West Bank, even though the Israeli army guidelines specifically identify “entry of sportspeople” as among the permissible exemptions to the closure. The guidelines, updated in February 2022, set out that “all Gaza Strip residents who are members of the national and local sports teams may enter Israel in transit to the Judea and Samaria area [West Bank] or abroad for official activities of the teams.”
Hilal al-Ghawash, 25, told Human Rights Watch that his football team, Khadamat Rafah, had a match in July 2019 with a rival West Bank team, the Balata Youth Center, in the finals of Palestine Club, with the winner entitled to represent Palestine in the Asian Cup. The Palestinian Football Federation applied for permits for the entire 22-person team and 13-person staff, but Israeli authorities, without explanation, granted permits to only 4 people, only one of whom was a player. The game was postponed as a result.
After Gisha appealed the decision in the Jerusalem District Court, Israeli authorities granted 11 people permits, including six players, saying the other 24 were denied on security grounds that were not specified. Al-Ghawash was among the players who did not receive a permit. The Jerusalem district court upheld the denials. With Khadamat Rafah prevented from reaching the West Bank, the Palestine Football Federation canceled the Palestine Cup finals match.
Al-Ghawash said that West Bank matches hold particular importance for Gaza football players, since they offer the opportunity to showcase their talents for West Bank clubs, which are widely considered superior to those in Gaza and pay better. Despite the cancellation, al-Ghawash said, the Balata Youth Center later that year offered him a contract to play for them. The Palestinian Football Federation again applied for a permit on al-Ghawash’s behalf, but he said he did not receive a response and was unable to join the team.
In 2021, al-Ghawash signed a contract with a different West Bank team, the Hilal al-Quds club. The Palestinian Football Federation again applied, but this time, the Israeli army denied the permit on unspecified security grounds. Al-Ghawash said he does not belong to any armed group or political movement and has no idea on what basis Israeli authorities denied him a permit.
Missing these opportunities has forced al-Ghawash to forgo not only higher pay, but also the chance to play for more competitive West Bank teams, which could have brought him closer to his goal of joining the Palestinian national team. “There’s a future in the West Bank, but, here in Gaza, there’s only a death sentence,” he said. “The closure devastates players’ future. Gaza is full of talented people, but it’s so difficult to leave.”
Palestinian students and professionals are frequently unable to obtain permits to study or train in the West Bank. In 2016, Augusta Victoria Hospital in East Jerusalem agreed to have 10 physics students from Al-Azhar University in Gaza come to the hospital for a six-month training program. Israeli authorities denied five students permits without providing a rationale, two of the students said.
The five other students initially received permits valid for only 14 days, and then encountered difficulties receiving subsequent permits. None were able to complete the full program, the two students said. One, Mahmoud Dabour, 28, said that when he applied for a second permit, he received no response. Two months later, he applied again and managed to get a permit valid for one week. He received one other permit, valid for 10 days, but then, when he returned and applied for the fifth time, Israeli authorities rejected his permit request without providing a reason. As a result, he could not finish the training program, and, without the certification participants receive upon completion, he said, he cannot apply for jobs or attend conferences or workshops abroad in the field.
Dabour said that the training cannot be offered in Gaza, since the necessary radiation material required expires too quickly for it to be functional after passing through the time-consuming Israeli inspections of materials entering the Gaza Strip. There are no functioning devices of the kind that students need for the training in Gaza, Dabour said.
One of the students whose permit was denied said, “I feel I studied for five years for nothing, that my life has stopped.” The student asked that his name be withheld for his security.
Two employees of Zimam, a Ramallah-based organization focused on youth empowerment and conflict resolution, said that the Israeli authorities repeatedly denied them permits to attend organizational training and strategy meetings. Atta al-Masri, the 31-year-old Gaza regional director, said he has applied four times for permits, but never received one. Israeli authorities did not respond the first three times and, the last time in 2021, denied him a permit on the grounds that it was “not in conformity” with the permissible exemptions to the closure. He has worked for Zimam since 2009, but only met his colleagues in person for the first time in Egypt in March 2022.
Ahed Abdullah, 29, Zimam’s youth programs coordinator in Gaza, said she applied twice for permits in 2021, but Israeli authorities denied both applications on grounds of “nonconformity:”
This is supposed to be my right. My simplest right. Why did they reject me? My colleagues who are outside Palestine managed to make it, while I am inside Palestine, I wasn’t able to go to the other part of Palestine … it’s only 2-3 hours from Gaza to Ramallah, why should I get the training online? Why am I deprived of being with my colleagues and doing activities with them instead of doing them in dull breakout rooms on Zoom?
Human Rights Watch has previously documented that the closure has prevented specialists in the use of assistive devices for people with disabilities from opportunities for hands-on training on the latest methods of evaluation, device maintenance, and rehabilitation. Human Rights Watch also documented restrictions on the movement of human rights workers. Gisha, the Israeli human rights group, has reported that Israel has blocked health workers in Gaza from attending training in the West Bank on how to operate new equipment and hampered the work of civil society organizations operating in Gaza.
Israeli authorities have also made it effectively impossible for Palestinians from Gaza to relocate to the West Bank. Because of Israeli restrictions, thousands of Gaza residents who arrived on temporary permits and now live in the West Bank are unable to gain legal residency. Although Israel claims that these restrictions are related to maintaining security, evidence Human Rights Watch collected suggests the main motivation is to control Palestinian demography across the West Bank, whose land Israel seeks to retain, in contrast to the Gaza Strip.
Egypt
With most Gaza residents unable to travel via Erez, the Egyptian-administered Rafah crossing has become Gaza’s primary outlet to the outside world, particularly in recent years. Egyptian authorities kept Rafah mostly closed for nearly five years following the July 2013 military coup in Egypt that toppled President Mohamed Morsy, whom the military accused of receiving support from Hamas. Egypt, though, eased restrictions in May 2018, amid the Great March of Return, the recurring Palestinian protests at the time near the fences separating Gaza and Israel.
Despite keeping Rafah open more regularly since May 2018, movement via Rafah is a fraction of what it was before the 2013 coup in Egypt. Whereas an average of 40,000 crossed monthly in both directions before the coup, the monthly average was 12,172 in 2019 and 15,077 in 2021, according to Gisha.
Human Rights Watch spoke with 16 Gaza residents who sought to travel via Rafah. Almost all said they opted for this route because of the near impossibility of receiving an Israeli permit to travel via Erez.
Gaza residents hoping to leave via Rafah are required to register in advance via a process the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has deemed “confusing” and “obscure.” Gaza residents can either register via the formal registration process administered by Gaza’s Interior Ministry or informally via what is known as tanseeq,or travel coordination with Egyptian authorities, paying travel companies or mediators for a place on a separate list coordinated by Egyptian authorities. Having two distinct lists of permitted travelers coordinated by different authorities has fueled “allegations of the payment of bribes in Gaza and in Egypt to ensure travel and a faster response,” according to OCHA.
The formal process often takes two to three months, except for those traveling for medical reasons, whose requests are processed faster, said Gaza residents who sought to leave Gaza via Rafah. Egyptian authorities have at times rejected those seeking to cross Rafah into Egypt on the grounds that they did not meet specific criteria for travel. The criteria lack transparency, but Gisha reported that they include having a referral for a medical appointment in Egypt or valid documents to enter a third country.
To avoid the wait and risk of denial, many choose instead the tanseeqroute. Several interviewees said that they paid large sums of money to Palestinian brokers or Gaza-based travel companies that work directly with Egyptian authorities to expedite people’s movement via Rafah. On social media, some of these companies advertise that they can assure travel within days to those who provide payment and a copy of their passport. The cost of tanseeq has fluctuated from several hundred US dollars to several thousand dollars over the last decade, based in part on how frequently Rafah is open.
In recent years, travel companies have offered an additional “VIP” tanseeq, which expedites travel without delays in transit between Rafah and Cairo, offers flexibility on travel date, and ensures better treatment by authorities. The cost was $700, as of January 2022.
The Cairo-based company offering the VIP tanseeq services, Hala Consulting and Tourism Services, has strong links with Egypt’s security establishment and is staffed largely by former Egyptian military officers, a human rights activist and a journalist who have investigated these issues told Human Rights Watch. This allows the company to reduce processing times and delays at checkpoints during the journey between Rafah and Cairo. The activist and journalist both asked that their names be withheld for security reasons.
The company is linked to prominent Egyptian businessman Ibrahim El-Argani, who has close ties with Egypt’s president, Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi. Ergany heads the Union of Sinai Tribes, which works hand-in-hand with the Egyptian military and intelligence agencies against militants operating in North Sinai. Ergany, one of Egypt’s few businessmen able to export products to Gaza from Egypt, owns the Sinai Sons company, which has an exclusive contract to handle all contracts related to Gaza reconstruction efforts. Human Rights Watch wrote to El-Argani to solicit his perspectives on these issues, but had received no response at this writing.
A 34-year-old computer engineer and entrepreneur said that he sought to travel in 2019 to Saudi Arabia to meet an investor to discuss a potential project to sell car parts online. He chose not to apply to travel via Erez, as he had applied for permits eight times between 2016 and 2018 and had either been rejected or not heard back.
He initially registered via the formal Ministry of Interior process and received approval to travel after three months. However, on the day assigned for his exit via Rafah, an Egyptian officer there said he found his reason for travel not sufficiently “convincing” and denied him passage. A few months later, he tried to travel again for the same purpose, this time opting for tanseeq and paying $400, and, this time, he successfully reached Saudi Arabia within a week of seeking to travel.
He said that he would like to go on vacation with his wife, but worries that Egyptian authorities will not consider vacation a sufficiently compelling reason for travel and that his only option will be to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars to do tanseeq.
A 73-year-old man sought to travel via Rafah in February 2021, with his 46-year-old daughter, to get knee replacement surgery in al-Sheikh Zayed hospital in Cairo. He said Gaza lacks the capacity to provide such an operation. The man and his daughter are relatives of a Human Rights Watch staff member. They applied via the Interior Ministry process and received approval in a little over a week.
After they waited for several hours in the Egyptian hall in Rafah on the day of travel, though, Egyptian authorities included the daughter’s name among the 70 names of people who were not allowed to cross that day, the daughter said. The father showed the border officials a doctor’s note indicating that he needed someone to travel with him given his medical situation, but the officer told him, “You either travel alone or go back with her to Gaza.” She said she returned to Gaza, alongside 70 other people, and her father later traveled on his own.
Five people who did manage to travel via Rafah said that they experienced poor conditions and poor treatment, including intrusive searches, by the Egyptian authorities, with several saying that they felt Egyptian authorities treated them like “criminals.” Several people said that Egyptian officers confiscated items from them during the journey, including an expensive camera and a mobile phone, without apparent reason.
Upon leaving Rafah, Palestinians are transported by bus to Cairo’s airport. The trip takes about seven hours, but several people said that the journey took up to three days between long periods of waiting on the bus, at checkpoints and amid other delays, often in extreme weather. Many of those who traveled via Rafah said that, during this journey, Egyptian authorities prevented passengers from using their phones.
The parents of a 7-year-old boy with autism and a rare brain disease said they sought to travel for medical treatment for him in August 2021, but Egyptian authorities only allowed the boy and his mother to enter. The mother said their journey back to Gaza took four days, mostly as a result of Rafah being closed. During this time, she said, they spent hours waiting at checkpoints, in extreme heat, with her son crying nonstop. She said she felt “humiliated” and treated like “an animal,” observing that she “would rather die than travel again through Rafah.”
A 33-year-old filmmaker, who traveled via Rafah to Morocco in late 2019 to attend a film screening, said the return from Cairo to Rafah took three days, much of it spent at checkpoints amid the cold winter in the Sinai desert.
A 34-year-old man said that he planned to travel in August 2019 via Rafah to the United Arab Emirates for a job interview as an Arabic teacher. He said, on his travel date, Egyptian authorities turned him back, saying they had met their quota of travelers. He crossed the next day, but said that, as it was a Thursday and with Rafah closed on Friday, Egyptian authorities made travelers spend two nights sleeping at Rafah, without providing food or access to a clean bathroom.
The journey to Cairo airport then took two days, during which he described going through checkpoints where officers made passengers “put their hands behind their backs while they searched their suitcases.” As a result of these delays totaling four days since his assigned travel date, he missed his job interview and found out that someone else was hired. He is currently unemployed in Gaza.
Given the uncertainty of crossing at Rafah, Gaza residents said that they often wait to book their flight out of Cairo until they arrive. Booking so late often means, beyond other obstacles, having to wait until they can find a reasonably priced and suitable flight, planning extra days for travel and spending extra money on changeable or last-minute tickets. Similar dynamics prevail with regard to travel abroad via Erez to Amman.
Human Rights Watch interviewed four men under the age of 40 with visas to third countries, whom Egyptian authorities allowed entry only for the purpose of transit. The authorities transported these men to Cairo airport and made them wait in what is referred to as the “deportation room” until their flight time. The men likened the room to a “prison cell,” with limited facilities and unsanitary conditions. All described a system in which bribes are required to be able to leave the room to book a plane ticket, get food, drinks, or a cigarette, and avoid abuse. One of the men described an officer taking him outside the room, asking him, “Won’t you give anything to Egypt?” and said that others in the room told him that he then proceeded to do the same with them
The Israeli military’s airstrikes that destroyed four high-rise buildings in Gaza City during the May 2021 fighting apparently violated the laws of war and may amount to war crimes, Human Rights Watch said today. The attacks also damaged neighboring structures, made several dozen families homeless, and shuttered scores of businesses that provided livelihoods to many people.
Between May 11 and 15, Israeli forces attacked the Hanadi, al-Jawhara, al-Shorouk, and al-Jalaa towers in the densely populated al-Rimal neighborhood. In each case, the Israeli military warned tenants of impending attacks, allowing for their evacuation. Three buildings were immediately leveled while the fourth, al-Jawhara, sustained extensive damage and is slated to be demolished. Israeli authorities contend that Palestinian armed groups were using the towers for military purposes, but have provided no evidence to support those allegations.
“The apparently unlawful Israeli strikes on four high-rise towers in Gaza City caused serious, lasting harm for countless Palestinians who lived, worked, shopped, or benefitted from businesses based there,” said Richard Weir, crisis and conflict researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The Israeli military should publicly produce the evidence that it says it relied on to carry out these attacks.”
The Israeli military stated that during the hostilities with Palestinian armed groups in Gaza from May 10 to 21, its forces attacked about 1,500 targets with air- and ground-launched munitions. The United Nations reported that Israeli attacks killed 260 people in Gaza, at least 129 of them civilians, including 66 children. Local authorities in Gaza said that 2,400 housing units were made uninhabitable, while over 50,000 units were damaged, and over 2,000 industrial, trade, and service facilities were destroyed or partially damaged.
Palestinian armed groups launched over 4,360 rockets indiscriminately toward Israel, resulting in the deaths of 12 civilians in Israel, including 2 children, and a soldier, according to Israeli authorities. Human Rights Watch separately reported on Israeli airstrikes that killed scores of Palestinian civilians and Palestinian armed group rocket attacks in violation of the laws of war.
Between May and August, Human Rights Watch interviewed by phone 18 Palestinians who were witnesses and victims of the attacks on the towers, including residents, business owners, and employees, as well as those in affected neighboring structures. Human Rights Watch also reviewed video footage and photographs taken after the attacks, and statements by Israeli and Palestinian officials and Palestinian armed groups.
The towers contained scores of businesses, offices of news agencies, and many homes. Jawad Mahdi, 68, an owner of al-Jalaa tower who lived there with dozens of family members, said, “All these years of hard work, it was a place of living, safety, children and grandchildren, all our history and life, destroyed in front of your eyes … It’s like someone ripping your heart out and throwing it.”
The long-term effects of the attacks extend beyond the immediate destruction of the buildings, Human Rights Watch said. Many jobs were lost with the closure of their companies and many families were displaced.
Mohammed Qadada, 31, the head of a digital marketing company located in Hanadi tower, said that the 30 employees affected include people who “have families of their own, who were just entering into marriage, who support their older parents, who have sick members of the family who need financial support.” He said they “won’t find work again because the equipment that they had allowed them to do rendering, designing, producing, [has] all been destroyed. So how can they do the work?”
Israel has asserted that the high-rise buildings housed offices of Palestinian armed groups, including the headquarters of certain units, military intelligence, and in one tower, offices for “the most valuable Hamas technological equipment” for use against Israel. Any information to support these claims has not been made public.
Human Rights Watch found no evidence that members of Palestinian groups involved in military operations had a current or long-term presence in any of the towers at the time they were attacked. Even if there were such a presence, the attacks appeared to cause foreseeably disproportionate harm to civilian property.
Under international humanitarian law, or the laws of war, warring parties may target only military objectives. In doing so, they must take all feasible precautions to minimize harm to civilians, and unless circumstances do not permit, provide effective advance warnings of attacks. Deliberate attacks on civilians and civilian objects are prohibited, including reprisals against civilians. The laws of war also prohibit indiscriminate attacks, which include attacks that do not target a specific military objective or do not distinguish between civilians and military targets. Attacks in which the expected harm to civilians and civilian property is disproportionate to the anticipated military gain are also prohibited.
Personnel or equipment being used in military operations are subject to attack, but whether that justifies destroying an entire large building where they might be present depends on the attack not inflicting disproportionate harm on civilians or civilian property. The proportionality of the attack is even more questionable because Israeli forces have previously demonstrated the capacity to strike specific floors or parts of structures. However, these attacks completely flattened three of the buildings, evidently by attacking their structural integrity. Regarding al-Jalaa tower, the Israeli military said that because armed groups had occupied multiple floors, the entire tower needed to be destroyed.
The deployment of Palestinian armed groups in the towers, if true, would go against requirements to take all feasible precautions to minimize harm to civilians under their control and to avoid placing military objectives in densely populated areas. Israel has repeatedly accused Palestinian armed groups of deploying among civilians and – without providing evidence, using them as “human shields” – the war crime of intentionally co-locating military forces with civilians to deter targeting those forces.
Individuals who order or commit serious violations of the laws of war with criminal intent – that is, deliberately or recklessly – are responsible for war crimes. A country responsible for laws-of-war violations is obligated to make full reparation for the loss or injury caused, including compensation for individuals harmed.
The 14-year Israeli closure of Gaza, along with Egyptian border restrictions, has devastated the economy in Gaza. Restrictions on the entry of goods broadly deemed to be “dual-use,” for example, have sharply reduced the population’s access to construction material and certain medical equipment. Unless lifted or substantially eased, the sweeping restrictions on the movement of people and goods will hamper reconstruction efforts.
On May 27, the UN Human Rights Council established a Commission of Inquiry to address violations and abuses in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel, including by advancing accountability for those responsible and justice for victims. The commission should examine unlawful attacks committed by Israeli forces and Palestinian armed groups during the May fighting. It should also analyze the larger context, including the Israeli government’s discriminatory treatment of Palestinians.
“Throughout the May hostilities, unlawful Israeli strikes not only killed many civilians, but also destroyed high-rise towers, wiping out scores of businesses and homes, upending the lives of thousands of Palestinians,” Weir said. “Donor funding alone will not rebuild Gaza. The crushing closure of the Gaza Strip needs to end, along with the impunity that fuels ongoing serious abuses.”
May Hostilities
The May 2021 fighting followed efforts by Jewish settler groups to evict and confiscate the property of longtime Palestinian residents in East Jerusalem. Palestinians held demonstrations around East Jerusalem, and Israeli security forces fired teargas, stun grenades, and rubber-coated steel bullets, injuring hundreds of Palestinians.
On May 10, Palestinian armed groups in Gaza started to launch rockets toward Israeli population centers. The Israeli military attacked the densely populated Gaza Strip with missiles, rockets, and artillery. Many of the attacks by the Israeli military and Palestinian armed groups used explosive weapons with wide-area effects in populated areas. A ceasefire went into effect on May 21.
The May hostilities, like those in 2008, 2012, 2014, 2018, and 2019, among others, took place amid Israel’s sweeping closure of the Gaza Strip, which began in 2007. They also took place in a context of discriminatory efforts to remove Palestinians from their homes in occupied East Jerusalem, policies and practices among the Israeli government’s crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution, as Human Rights Watch has documented.
Human Rights Watch on May 30 requested permits for senior researchers to enter Gaza to conduct research on the fighting, but Israeli authorities on July 26 rejected the request. Israeli authorities have since 2008 refused access to Human Rights Watch international staff to enter Gaza, except for a single visit in 2016.
On July 13, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Spokesperson responded to a June 4 Human Rights Watch letter asking detailed questions about the attacks, saying that the Israeli military “strikes military targets exclusively, following an assessment that the potential collateral damage resulting from the attack is not excessive in relation to the expected military advantage.” The military added that it was making inquiries and investigating “various incidents” in order “to assess whether the obligatory rules had been breached and to draw conclusions.”
Attacks on High-Rise Buildings
The strikes on the four towers that Human Rights Watch investigated were just a small fraction of the Israeli military’s attacks in Gaza during the May fighting.
In each instance, the Israeli military warned residents of the impending attack by calling a building manager, security guard, or tenant, waited for individuals to evacuate, then launched smaller munitions that were either non-explosive or had small explosive yields – which the Israeli military calls “a knock on the roof” – and then carried out airstrikes. Three of the four buildings were immediately leveled. Although no deaths or injuries of fighters or civilians were reported, the attacks destroyed civilian property worth millions of US dollars.
Human Rights Watch research into the attacks on the four towers found no evidence that members of Palestinian groups involved in military operations were in the buildings or had a long-term presence. One businessman said that Hamas had offices in Hanadi tower, but he could not identify who the tenants were or what they did, or that they had any links to Hamas’s armed wing. Under the laws of war, civilian officials not involved in military operations are not subject to attack. Media offices are civilian objects unless they are taking a direct part in the hostilities by communicating military information.
The destruction of businesses and residences in the towers may have long-term implications for the enjoyment of basic rights of those affected, including access to an adequate standard of living, such as water, food, and housing, and loss of livelihoods. The displacement of families can impair their physical security, access to health care, and family life. The destruction of a dozen offices of media outlets undermines the collection and dissemination of information in Gaza.
The size of the blast following the munitions impact and subsequent detonation, as captured in videos either distributed by the Israeli military or circulated online and reviewed by Human Rights Watch, appear consistent with the use of munitions with large high-explosive warheads. These explosive weapons produced wide-area effects, resulting in the complete destruction or serious damage to each of the towers and damage to surrounding areas, including to homes, businesses, and infrastructure.
The Hanadi Tower
At about 6 p.m. on May 11, the Israeli military called the security guard at Hanadi tower to notify him that the 13-story tower would be attacked and that occupants should evacuate, said Maher Awad Kamal Safadi, 36, a local resident and business owner. Israeli forces then struck the building and area around it with multiple small munitions, according to Safadi and a video posted online prior to the attack. Then, at around 7:30 p.m., at least one munition hit the side of the building at its base. Seconds later, at least one more munition struck the opposite side at its base and the building quickly collapsed, causing damage to surrounding businesses and homes.
The attack caused no casualties, but its owner, Ahmed Abu Jaber, said that the building and contents destroyed were worth millions of dollars. Damage to a nearby hotel caused hundreds of thousands of dollars in loss.
Following the attack, the Israeli military released multiplestatements, images, and a video of the strike. The statements acknowledged the attack and said that Hamas used the building for “military research and development” and that it housed “Hamas military intelligence offices.” One statement posted on the Israeli military’s website said the building housed “multiple military units used by Hamas” and included a “headquarters” for research and development, military intelligence, and “more,” but did not further clarify.
The mediareported that the building housed offices of the political leadership of Hamas. A journalist familiar with the tower, who did not wish to be identified, said: “There are political meeting offices for Hamas parliament members and spokespersons in the tower.” While one business owner in the tower said there were Hamas offices in the tower, he was unaware of their purpose.
Hamas, the de facto authority in Gaza, is a group that includes both a political party and an armed wing. Mere membership or affiliation with Hamas is not a sufficient basis for determining someone to be a lawful military target. The laws of war allow the targeting of military commanders in the course of armed conflict, provided that such attacks otherwise comply with the laws that protect civilians. Political leaders not taking part in military operations, as well as civilians, would not be legitimate targets of attack.
Three of the tower’s business owners described the effects of the attack. Nihad Abdellatif Taha, 45, a computer engineer, said damages to his programming and digital marketing company, Portals, headquartered in the tower, were about US$30,000:
I had 36 employees and we were renting two apartments – 360 square meters with furniture, offices, meeting rooms, surveillance cameras – all of this is gone, in addition to very important documents, all the company’s papers are gone, including stamps and the employees’ contracts – all gone.
Mohammed Qadada, 31, founder and chief executive officer of Planet for Digital Solutions, said that when it moved into the tower in 2017, he invested about $40,000 in renovations, furniture, and new equipment, including workstations, laptops, and printers. All of it was destroyed: “It was May 22 when I went to the tower for the first time [since its destruction]. Everything was gone, I saw rubble, I saw remnants of an office, I saw people’s stuff strewn around, I saw people’s memories, I saw everything fallen.”
As of late May, the company’s 30 employees had all been unemployed since the attack.
Maher Awad Kamal Safadi, 36, who owned Friends Gym on the ground floor of Hanadi tower, said that months earlier he had invested over $10,000 in new exercise equipment. “I had a sauna, jacuzzi, Moroccan bath, a fitness room and a weight room, bathrooms, and a full restaurant with fridges and a gas stove” – all of which were destroyed. He said the attack cost the gym’s six employees their jobs and that he would need $150,000 to replace the equipment.
The buildings immediately adjacent to Hanadi tower, particularly to the north, suffered serious damage. Satellite imagery recorded on May 14 shows damage to the southern and western facades of the Handouqa apartment building and the Gaza International Hotel, both a few meters north of Hanadi tower. Imagespublished on May 12 show serious damage to the facades of the two buildings.
Imad Handouqa, 54, the owner of the Handouqa apartment, which had 10 floors and 25 residential apartments, said it was no longer habitable. He said that part of Hanadi tower fell on the building, damaging its foundations and causing some apartment ceilings to come down on the rooms. He said the total value of the structure was about $1.3 million.
The owner of the Gaza International Hotel, Abu Ahmed Jaber, in a video posted on the hotel’s Facebook page, said the damage to the hotel amounts to nearly half a million dollars.
The attack also damaged critical electrical delivery lines for Gaza City and the area immediately around the tower, Gaza’s electricity company said.
al-Jawhara Tower
On the evening of May 11, the Israeli military called residents living next to the tower to inform the tenants of the 11-story Jawhara tower that the primarily commercial building would be targeted and to evacuate. At approximately 10 p.m., Israeli aircraft launched small munitions, striking the roof and the ground near the tower. At around 2 a.m. on May 12, larger air-dropped munitions struck the building, severely damaging it.
Mohammad Atta Hassan Jaarour, 71, a founder and co-owner who lived on the building’s seventh floor, said the damage, including to the foundational pillars, left the building structurally unsound. “The whole building is destroyed,” he said. “It’s still standing, but it’s a skeleton, all the ground floors and the two underground floors all exploded.”
Residents and tenants said the strike caused extensive damage to their apartments, businesses, equipment, and the surrounding neighborhood. One said that the strikes were so intense that “most of the surrounding buildings – the fronts of the buildings and the glass – were destroyed.”
Following the attack, the Israeli military issued a statement saying that the building housed a “headquarters belonging to the Hamas terror organization’s intelligence unit, Hamas Judea and Samaria [West Bank] Headquarters, Public Relations department and the Gaza Brigade.” The Israeli military also released a video of the attack showing at least two munitions striking the building within seconds of one another.
Six days later, the Israeli military released a statement and images, saying it attacked another building that it also said was the Hamas headquarters for the West Bank.
Ahmed Zaeem, a co-owner of al-Jawhara who lived in the building with his parents, wife, and four children and had been there for 17 years, said the tower contained 64 units on eight floors, two underground floors, and a floor dedicated to a shopping mall. “The 64 units include residences, law offices, media outlets, engineering firms, development agencies, [and information technology] companies,” Zaeem said. “There’s also a dentist. There were no less than 20 stores on the bottom three commercial floors.” Six of the 64 units were residential.
Zaeem said the overall economic loss was $5-7 million to rebuild the building, which did not include the losses in the commercial units and the residential apartments. He said he personally lost about $1.5 million in property he owned in the tower. Jaarour estimated that he lost $1.2 million. “If we had the money, I think we could rebuild it in four to five years,” Jaarour said, citing the Israeli closure and restrictions on the entry of building materials.
Both co-owners described the loss of businesses in which they had invested. Jaarour cited Magic Pizza, which he said had new appliances and furniture and employed about a dozen people: “We were so happy and had been waiting a long time to get it running. In one moment, all of these things turned into an illusion.”
Zaeem and his family ran several offices and stores in the tower, including the Elaine Center women’s clothing shop. He said his wife had invested $20,000 in equipment for a new photography studio, Studio Wateen Photographer, which had been set to open soon.
The building also contained SMT Solutions, an information technology company that provides internet to areas throughout Gaza. A post on the company’s Facebook page on May 13 said that the fiber optic networks, data center, and the company’s headquarters were destroyed in the attack and would take six months to repair.
The tower also housed the Young Journalists Radio Club, Gaza’s only radio broadcast for children. Ghassan Radwan, 51, owner of the radio club, said it had eight people working at the radio station and more than 20 children who ran the programming and did the broadcasting. Everything in their office was destroyed and to rebuild the network would cost about $70,000, but that would require overcoming the restrictions on the entry of communications equipment due to the Israeli closure and Egyptian restrictions.
The official Palestinian news agency, Wafa, listed the offices of 11 media outlets in the building: London-based Qatari broadcaster Al-Araby TV; news website and newspaper Felestin;Iraqi broadcaster Al-Etejah TV; Al-Kofiya TV; Jordanian broadcaster Al-Mamlaka; Sabq24 News Agency; news website Al-Bawaba 24; the production company Watania News Agency; the local photo agency APA Images; Al-Nujaba TV; and the Syrian state-owned broadcaster Syria TV. However, Human Rights Watch was not able to independently verify whether Al-Nujaba TV, Syria TV, and APA Images were located in the tower.
The tower also contained the offices of the media rights group Forum of Palestinian Journalists, and the Palestinian Forum for Democratic Dialogue and Development.
When Zaeem visited his home in the tower after the attack, he found it destroyed: “The furniture was ripped, the curtains, things turned over – everything was broken. The bathroom doors were all broken, the tiles came off the floors, the roof on the apartments are weak and would leak if there’s any water.” In early June, Zaeem said he and his family were living with a friend while looking for somewhere new to live.
al-Shorouk Tower
On the afternoon of May 12, the Israeli military phoned the 14-story Shorouk tower’s security guard, who then informed the tenants that the building would be attacked and that they needed to evacuate. Approximately 30 minutes after the phone warning, Israeli aircraft launched lower-yield explosive munitions against the structure. A few minutes later, Israeli aircraft struck the tower with multiple, large air-dropped munitions, critically damaging the structure, causing two parts of the building to collapse but leaving the center – and tallest part of the building – standing. About 10 minutes later, Israeli aircraft attacked the remaining part of structure, using two large, air-dropped munitions, causing the final element to collapse onto nearby shops and homes.
No one was killed or injured as a result, but the owners of the tower and businesses in the building, as well as adjacent buildings, described destruction and damage to scores of businesses and at least a half-dozen homes.
Following the attack, the Israeli military released a graphic of the building and a statement that said “[t]he building housed Hamas military intelligence offices, as well as infrastructure used by the terror organizations to communicate tactical-military information.”
Ahmed Masoud al-Mughanni, 60, chairman of the building’s board of directors, said that the building had 50 offices and a coffee shop – “doctors, lawyers, journalists’ offices” – and empty residential apartments. He estimated that the cost of rebuilding the tower would be between $2 and $3.5 million and take several years.
The attack destroyed the offices of several media outlets in the building: Al-Aqsa TV and Al-Aqsa Radio; the Palestine Media Production Company; Al-Quds Today; and a Palestinian Authority-affiliated newspaper, Al-Hayat al-Jadida.
The Palestine Media Production Company rented five apartments on floors 5, 9, and 13. Ismail Abdelghani Ismail Jabr, 27, whose father owns the company, said the company had been operating in the building since 1994 and employed 17 people at the time of the attack. Jabr and Mohammad al-Buhaisi, 30, a producer, said the company produces television and video reports, films, and stories for numerous foreign news outlets. Just prior to the attack, they managed to remove equipment from one of their two studios, but the remainder of their equipment was destroyed, along with eight years of archived material.
Witnesses to the attack said that when the tower came down, it damaged numerous shops and homes in the area, including the al-Sousi shopping complex, a nearby restaurant, and the Hassania building.
Ahmed Ayman Mohammad Omar al-Sousi, 27, who lived in the building next to al-Shorouk tower with his extended family of 42 in six separate apartments, said they owned and operated 10 ground-floor stores that sold accessories, clothing, and embroidery. He said that when the central part of al-Shorouk tower collapsed, it fell on their businesses and residences: “The amount of damage in the area from the tower falling is horrific. Flames lit up in the area – our building was on fire. The 10 stores and five storage rooms were all burned.”
Because it was Eid season, the stores and storage rooms were full of merchandise, all of which was destroyed, he said.
Al-Sousi said the fires caused by the explosions burned for three days and did the most damage. He estimated that the destruction of the store he owned with his father caused losses of about $120,000. All seven people employed at the shop, including several family members, lost their jobs. As of early June, he said the employees from the nine other stores were also out of work.
Along with the businesses, four of the six apartments where the al-Sousi family lived were also destroyed or seriously damaged either by the collapsing tower or the resulting fire. “The tower is now on our house – how are we going to lift it,” al-Sousi said. Al-Sousi’s extended family members all had to find new homes.
al-Jalaa Tower
On the afternoon of May 15, a man who identified himself as “Danny” from the Israeli military spoke in Arabic on the phone to the nephew of Jawad Mahdi, 68, the owner of the 14-story Jalaa tower. His voice was captured on a cell phone threatening a reprisal attack: “Because they [Palestinian armed groups] shot at Israel and they shot at Tel Aviv, we are now going to hit and strike the entire tower.” The phone was handed over to Madhi. “Danny” told Mahdi to inform the tenants that the building would be targeted and to evacuate all the floors.
Human Rights Watch sent questions to the Israeli military inquiring as to the authenticity of the recording and whether the statements made reflected Israeli military policy, but, as of the date of publication, have not received a response.
At about 3 p.m., Israeli aircraft fired small munitions at the building. Within minutes, Israeli aircraft attacked the tower using at least two air-dropped munitions near the base of the building on two sides and it immediately collapsed.
No one was killed or injured because everyone had evacuated, but residents and tenants say that in addition to the destruction of the building, they lost everything in their homes and businesses, including equipment and records. The building housed bureaus of Al Jazeera English and the Associated Press.
Following the attack, the Israeli military posted an image and video, and issued several statements that sought to justify it. Israeli military officials and politicians, including then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, also issued statements or addressed the media on the subject. These statements changed over time, describing the threats posed by the alleged militant presence as increasingly serious.
On the day of the attack, the Israeli military stated that the building “contained military assets belonging to the intelligence offices of the Hamas terror organization.” Later that day, it said it “housed the Hamas Research and Development unit, which is responsible, among other things, for terror activity carried out against the State of Israel.” The same statement added that this unit included “subject matter experts (SMEs) which constitute a unique asset to the Hamas terrorist organization. These SMEs operate the most valuable Hamas technological equipment against Israel.” The then-military spokesperson, Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, toldReuters later that day that the offices occupied by Palestinian armed groups were located on multiple floors.
On May 16, the Israeli military’s official Twitter account stated in a post that the tower was an “important base of operations for Hamas’ military intel” and that, along with gathering intelligence, it “manufactured weapons and positioned equipment to hamper IDF operations.” In a second post, minutes later, it said that Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad removed equipment following the military’s warning to tenants and residents, though it did not specify which equipment.
On May 17, then-Prime Minister Netanyahu said on the US-television network CBS that the building had “an intelligence office for the Palestinian terrorist organization housed in that building that plots and organizes attacks against Israeli citizens.” An unnamed senior Israeli military official later told the New York Times in an article published on May 21 that the building contained electronic jamming equipment. Israel has provided no evidence to support any of these allegations.
Tenants, residents, and the owner of the building have rejected Israeli claims that armed groups had a presence in the building.
The Associated Press’s president and CEO, Gary Pruitt, said: “We have had no indication Hamas was in the building or active in the building. This is something we actively check to the best of our ability. We would never knowingly put our journalists at risk.”
Mahdi, who is also a resident, said that the building was worth about $5 million and that he estimated another $2 million in furniture and appliances were destroyed.
A list that Mahdi produced for receiving compensation from authorities in Gaza for damage to the tower shows over 50 individual businesses and offices on five floors and the two rooftops. Residences filled the other five floors, many of them inhabited by Mahdi’s relatives. He said that 30 families were living in the building at the time of the attack, a total of about 130 people. Mahdi said he and his extended family owned 10 units.
Fares al-Ghoul, 30, who works for al-Mayadeen Media Group, which had offices in al-Jalaa tower, said that he was in his office on the third floor with five colleagues when the superintendent told them to evacuate:
I didn’t know what to do. Imagine the situation, the superintendent comes to you crying, saying “Quick! Quick! Get out! They’re going to bomb the building.” So, the five others and I took the equipment we could and left behind equipment worth $200,000, because we just didn’t have enough time.
The equipment destroyed included a satellite transmitter, which he said costs around $120,000, and is extremely difficult to replace because of the Israeli closure of Gaza. Wael Dahdouh, 51, an Al Jazeera correspondent and the Gaza office head, said that he estimated their losses at about $1 million.
Ramy Haddad, 46, the head of the Central Blood Lab, part of the Palestine Future Foundation for Childhood, offers tests and regular follow-ups for patients of thalassemia, a rare blood disorder. The lab had several pieces of special equipment to run these tests, all of which were destroyed. Haddad estimated the losses at $70,000 and said it would be difficult to replace some of the specialized medical equipment due to Israel’s entry restrictions.
Several engineering and consulting firms also occupied offices in the building. Khaled Omar Abu Sultan, 58, director of Ro’yatak, an engineering consulting and management business housed in the tower since 2020, said the firm designed hospitals, schools, roads, and other infrastructure. At the time of the attack, he and his employees were at home and did not have time to retrieve anything from the office. He estimates the losses in office equipment at about $15,000: “The main loss is a large archive of projects – our plans, files, references and documents. We had printers and equipment for photographing maps.” Sultan said they had to stop work on all current projects until they can buy new equipment.
Khaled Majed Abu Rahma, 30, works with his father at Al-Burj for Engineering Consultations and Design, which has been in al-Jalaa tower for 15 years. He said the firm makes engineering plans and employs 10 engineers, including those with specialties in civil, architecture, mechanical, and electrical engineering. The firm helped to plan homes, villas, and multi-story buildings in Gaza. “We lost everything – the whole office, the furniture, the files,” he said. “We didn’t take anything.”
Rahma estimated that the apartment, which they owned, cost $72,000 and the equipment and furniture lost was a little over $19,000. All 10 engineers lost their jobs as a result of the attack.
The attack also damaged civilian structures around the building. Mahdi said: “The surrounding buildings and homes suffered a great deal of damage, some were destroyed … The Al-Mushtaha building near us suffered the most damage.” He said that the front of the adjacent building owned by the Anan family also suffered damage.
Al-Ghoul said that the buildings next to the tower, including the Watan tower and Anan building, and across the street were also damaged.
Dahdouh said that the whole block was evacuated, but when residents of other buildings tried to return, they found their homes damaged and could not go back right away.
The destruction of al-Jalaa tower left the 30 families who lived in it homeless and seeking shelter elsewhere. Mahdi said that “Our family got separated – each one of us went to a separate house. We found two homes to rent – we’re waiting for another five homes so we can all be together.”
Long-term, “Reverberating” Effects, and Gaza’s Closure
In addition to the damage and destruction to the towers and their offices and residences, the attacks can be expected to have various “reverberating” effects – harm to civilians and civilian objects caused by the attack that are not direct or immediate. These include displacement and a reduced standard of living and impaired access to shelter, health care, and basic services such as electricity, all of which affect the enjoyment of basic human rights.
In Gaza, these effects are exacerbated by the generalized closure that Israel has imposed on Gaza since 2007 – policies that Egypt, which borders Gaza to the south, does little to alleviate by maintaining its restrictions. The Israeli closure, along with Egyptian border restrictions, has devastated Gaza’s economy. Eighty percent of Gaza’s people rely on humanitarian aid and more than half live below the poverty line. In 2020, the unemployment rate was above 40 percent.
Israeli authorities justify the Gaza closure on security grounds. But the ban on the movement of more than two million people, with narrow exceptions, based on generalized threats, and the sweeping restrictions on the entry and exit of goods, violates Israel’s obligations under international human rights and humanitarian law to ensure that the needs of the population are met.
Israeli authorities, for example, severely restrict the entry of so-called “dual-use” items that could be used for military purposes, such as the construction of tunnels or fortifications. However, the “dual-use” list includes both overly broad categories and items that are vital to meet the needs of Gaza’s population, including “communications equipment,” “steel elements and construction products,” “drilling equipment,” and certain medical equipment .
These restrictionshave sharply reduced the population’s access to construction material and other goods vital to the rebuilding of Gaza and its infrastructure. The Israeli military argues that armed groups in Gaza use cement to build tunnels and estimate that constructing a kilometer of tunnel requires a few hundred tons of cement. But people in Gaza need over a million tons of cement annually to build and maintain homes, schools, health clinics, the water system, and other vital infrastructure.
The recent destruction and damage to tens of thousands of residential and commercial buildings and infrastructure caused by Israeli strikes increases the need for building materials to repair and rebuild these structures. The Israeli authorities should not restrict an overwhelmingly civilian good, badly needed for rebuilding, because armed groups may use a small fraction of it to build tunnels or for other military purposes.
The general inaccessibility of building materials means that any reconstruction efforts will require substantial time to complete. In interviews with investors and owners at three of the four towers, all said that because of Israel’s closure it would take years just to rebuild the structures. Several owners of businesses that rely on specialized equipment the entry of which is severely restricted, such as broadcasting equipment, expressed concern that rebuilding would be complicated and slow.
On August 13, the Israeli army announced that, in light of the stable security situation at the moment, it would expand the list of goods allowed to enter Gaza, including to allow in “goods and equipment for humanitarian projects.” Palestinian authorities said on August 17 that, according to information they received from Israeli authorities, “construction materials for the private sector and related to humanitarian projects only” would be among the items permitted to enter Gaza. Israeli authorities reportedly allowed some items in on August 19, but it remains unclear to what extent this marks a change in policy and how long these measures will remain in place.
The Israeli government should allow the entry into Gaza of concrete and other materials needed for the reconstruction of civilian infrastructure, subject to, at most, narrowly tailored restrictions based on particularized security assessments.
Unless the closure is lifted or substantially eased, the long-term and reverberating effects of the destruction of the towers and other civilian infrastructure will be exacerbated.
Lack of Accountability
Israeli and Palestinian authorities have a long track record of failing to credibly investigate alleged war crimes by their forces in Gaza. On May 12, the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) indicated that it was monitoring the situation in Gaza. The prosecutor’s office should include in its Palestine investigation apparently unlawful Israeli attacks in Gaza, as well as Palestinian rocket attacks that struck population centers in Israel.
Judicial authorities in other countries should also investigate and prosecute under national laws those credibly implicated in serious crimes in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and in Israel under the principle of universal jurisdiction.
Warring parties should refrain from using explosive weapons with wide-area effects in populated areas because of the foreseeable indiscriminate harm to civilians. Countries should support a strong political declaration that addresses the harm that explosive weapons cause to civilians and commit to avoid using those with wide-area effects in populated areas.
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