refugees.resist : Military Occupation

Military Occupation

2011-08-17

refugees.resist

1176

Studies

Palestinians living under Israeli military occupation in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip continue to be explicitly and systematically deprived of their civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights and liberties:

Military Occupation

The West Bank and Gaza Strip, which constitute 22% of British mandated Palestine, have been under Israeli military occupation since 1967.

U.N. Resolution 242 holds that continued occupation of these territories is illegal. The Resolution proclaims the “inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war”. In fact, the international community recognizes the illegality of the continued occupation of Palestinian territories. But still, Israel refuses to end its occupation.

The Israeli military occupation is in itself violent and a major violation of International Law and international human rights law. The ongoing military occupation has many implications leading to great suffering for the Palestinians who have seen their lives, on all levels, controlled on a daily basis by the occupying army.

The military occupation is in violation of many U.N. resolutions and International conventions such as:

·UN resolutions 194, 242, 338, 1397, 1402, and many more

·4th Geneva Convention

·Hague Regulations

·UN Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officials

· International Covenant of Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights

·Convention on Elimination of All forms of Racial Discrimination

· Convention on Rights of the Child and others

Canada has either ratified or acceded to each of these instruments.

Injuries and killings: indiscriminate violence, assassinations & human shields

Since the start of the second Intifada in September 2000, over 2,755 Palestinians have been killed and 28,000 Palestinians have been injured. Most have been civilians. 460 Palestinian children have been killed. The number of Palestinian children killed, mainly in air and ground attacks, has increased in 2003.[1]

The indiscriminate use of violence is further illustrated by the use of flechette shells in Gaza. The use of such anti-personnel weapons in a densely populated area such as Gaza exposes civilians to great risk and fails to take account of the need to distinguish between civilians and military objectives.[2]

Shelling, shooting, aerial bombardment: Palestinian communities, especially those located near Israeli settlements and military bases, are frequently subjected to indiscriminate shelling and shooting of residential areas, in some places every night. Heavy machine guns and tanks fire into Palestinian villages and refugee camps, while Apache helicopter gunships and F-16 fighter planes bombard PNA office buildings in civilian areas. Such use of force is disproportionate and often indiscriminate, resulting in deaths and damage and destruction to many homes.[3]

Israeli Security forces in the Occupied Territories operate pursuant to Open-Fire Regulations, which limit the circumstances in which firing at persons is allowed. Despite these Regulations, from the beginning of the first Intifada (9 December 1987) to the end of May 2003, Israeli security force killed 3,399 Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, the vast majority by gunfire. 659 of those killed were minors under 17. The principal reason for these deaths is the deliberate policy of allowing lethal gunfire in situations where soldiers are not in danger.[4]

Violence by Security Forces: According to many testimonies given to B'Tselem and other human rights organizations, the security forces use violence, at times gross violence, against Palestinians unnecessarily and without justification.[5]

In one case, an IDF Spokesperson issued an official statement which contended that the soldier who killed a Palestinian civilian in Beit Omer, Hebron District, in November 2000, had shot him in self-defense after the man tried to snatch the soldier's weapon. B'Tselem's thorough research revealed that the claim was false. In fact, the Palestinian was shot following a verbal argument with the soldier. During the argument, the soldier aimed his weapon at the Palestinian's head and pulled the trigger.[6]

Extrajudicial assassinations: From October 2000 to April 2003, the IDF has killed more than 230 Palestinians, including 80 children, women and innocent bystanders, in assassination actions. Over 300 persons have been injured in these actions.[7]

Human Shields: During the Al-Aqsa Intifada, IDF soldiers have used Palestinian civilians as human shields. This practice has been most common during IDF operations in Palestinian population centers, such as Operation Defensive Shield. The method is the same each time: soldiers pick a civilian at random and force him to protect them by doing dangerous tasks that put his life at risk. The soldiers in the field did not initiate this practice; rather, the order to use civilians as a means of protection was made by senior army officials. [8]

House Demolitions & Property Destruction

The collective punishment of Palestinians in the form of destruction of property has had serious consequences for the Palestinian people and the environment of Palestine. According to Jeff Halper, the Director of the Israeli Committee against House Demolitions, “The bulldozer has become as much a symbol of Israeli occupation as the rifle and the tank.”[9]

The situation is particularly acute in Gaza. According to the Commissioner-General of UNRWA:

At the end of May 2003, a total of 1,134 homes [had] been demolished by the Israeli military in the Gaza Strip, making almost 10,000 individuals homeless. Unfortunately, this is not a policy on the wane. During the first two years of the intifada, the average number of homes demolished in Gaza - a statistical category both depressing and surreal - was 32 per month. Since the start of 2003, the average has risen to 72. Disturbingly, the publication of the road map to peace has so far had no impact.[10]

According to information received, the Israeli army has destroyed an estimated 4,000 homes over the past three years, leaving thousands of people homeless, many of whom are women, children and elderly persons.[11]

The destruction of thousands of acres of agricultural land based on the claim that Palestinians fired from these lands and the demolition of entire residential neighborhoods on the charge that some of them contained tunnels constitute excessive injury to the civilian population. This injury is illegal.[12]

Since the beginning of the Al-Aqsa Intifada, Israel has demolished hundreds of houses, uprooted thousands of trees, and destroyed thousands of acres of land in the Gaza Strip. In almost all the cases of demolition, the houses were occupied and the residents fled when the bulldozers appeared at their doorsteps.[13]

Land confiscations and the Wall

The fact must be faced that what we are presently witnessing in the West Bank is a visible and clear act of territorial annexation under the guise of security.[14]

Israel is presently building a wall in the West Bank that, when completed, will be some 450 (possibly 650) kilometers in length. At the time of writing some 150 kilometers have already been completed and building constructors are working frenetically to finish it as soon as possible. At times this barrier takes the form of an eight-meter-high wall (near Qalqiliya).[15]

The Wall has serious implications for human rights. It further restricts the freedom of movement of Palestinians, restricts access to health and education facilities and results in the unlawful taking of Palestinian property. However, the Wall has more serious implications as it violates two of the most fundamental principles of contemporary international law: the prohibition on the forcible acquisition of territory and the right to self-determination.[16]

Checkpoints

Checkpoints, closures and curfews are words that fail to capture the full enormity of what is happening today in the West Bank and Gaza. A checkpoint is not simply a military outpost on a highway that checks the documents of pedestrians and traffic that seek to proceed along the road.[17]

Every day thousands of Palestinians must pass through these checkpoints in order to travel from home to work, to reach schools and hospitals and to visit friends and family. Every day Palestinians are compelled to waste hours passing through these checkpoints. Frequently, Palestinians are obliged to leave their vehicles at one checkpoint and to walk along dusty roads to another checkpoint to take a taxi to their destination. Accounts of rudeness, humiliation and brutality at the checkpoints are legion.[18]

Ambulances are often delayed and women give birth to children at checkpoints. Checkpoints are not so much a security measure for ensuring that would-be suicide bombers do not enter Israel, but rather the institutionalization of the humiliation of the Palestinian people.[19]

There are some 300 checkpoints or roadblocks, including about 140 checkpoints manned by the military.[20]

When at all possible, traveling even a short distance between West Bank towns and villages usually entails a lengthy, costly and potentially dangerous journey for Palestinians. Detours to avoid closed checkpoints, blockades or areas which are forbidden to them often take travelers miles out of their way, sometimes on tracks over or round steep hills, changing several vehicles and crossing blockades on foot. In addition this involves the risk of being turned back, harassed or even shot. Such detours are difficult or impossible for the sick, the elderly or those carrying heavy packages or small children.[21]

Blocking of the access roads to certain towns and villages by means of staffed checkpoints or concrete blocks, dirt piles, or deep trenches. Since October 2000, most of the Palestinian communities in the West Bank have been closed off in this manner, and their residents severed from the outside world.[22]

B'Tselem's checkpoint monitors took testimonies from ten Palestinians who were assaulted between December 27-31 by soldiers serving at the Sarra checkpoint. The abuse included a mock execution, severe beatings and tying up the victims. The abuse occurred on a regular basis.[23]

In 2001 the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights described Israel as perpetrating:

…continuing gross violations of economic, social and cultural rights in the occupied territories, especially the severe measures adopted by the State party to restrict the movement of civilians between points within and outside the occupied territories, severing their access to food, water, health care, education and work.[24]

Sieges, Curfews & Closures

West Bank towns and villages have often been placed under curfew, in many cases for prolonged periods. After the Israeli army retook control of the main West Bank towns in the spring of 2002, 24-hour curfews were imposed for days and in some cases weeks. The army almost completely stopped vital service providers and ambulances from functioning. At times, curfews were lifted for a few hours to allow Palestinians to purchase essential supplies.[25]

Nablus was under curfew for longer than any other city, and remained under 24-hour curfew for five months after 21 June 2002, apart from one month when it was under a night curfew only. In the H2 area of Hebron some 30,000 Palestinians have been under full or partial curfew most of the time in order to allow some 500 Israeli settlers to move freely.[26]

When a town or a village is under curfew, the Israeli army usually schedules to allow the movement of civilians for a few hours during daylight. However, scheduled breaks in the curfew are often cancelled without notice. Members of the Israeli security forces have frequently resorted to lethal force to enforce closures, killing or injuring scores of unarmed Palestinians as a result. Soldiers have opened fire on Palestinians bypassing checkpoints, crossing trenches, removing barriers and breaking curfews. They have fired at ambulance personnel, municipal employees and journalists who had coordinated their movements in advance with the Israeli army.[27]

According to the Palestine Red Crescent Society, the total days of curfew accumulated by all major Palestinian cities and villages between September 2000 and February 8th 2004 amount to 1,081 days.[28]

The most extreme restriction on movement. During curfew, the residents are completely prohibited from leaving their homes. Since the beginning of "Operation Determined Path", on 18 June 2002, curfew has been routine for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.[29]

Since the outbreak of the Al-Aqsa Intifada, Israel has imposed a total closure on the Occupied Territories and has prohibited Palestinian movement between the Occupied Territories and Israel and between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.[30]

Imprisonment, administrative detentions and torture

According to documented information published by Palestinian human rights organizations and the Palestinian law NGOs in addition to official sources as the statistics provided by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Israeli military occupation forces, the number of Palestinian detainees amounted to 28,000 since the outbreak of the present Intifada. Presently, there are approximately 5700 prisoners (males and females) who are detained in four detention centers. This number includes 1200 administrative detainees who are being held without charges, nor have they been brought to trial. Moreover, there are 66 women prisoners detained in Al-Ramleh prison within the Green Line and about 200 boys of no more than 18 years who live under very difficult conditions of detention[31]

Overcrowding in the Ramle Women's Prison, where 10 girls were detained in October 2003, means that up to 8 women are held in each cell, and the number of skin diseases is reportedly increasing as a result of those conditions. The quality of food is reported to be extremely bad and helpings have been halved in the last weeks. The administration has even prohibited schoolbooks and other academic material, which the inmate's families used to bring for them. Detainees who have not been sentenced are not allowed to have any books at all. These restrictions are in complete contradiction with Israeli civil law and International law.[32]

The International Secretariat of OMCT was informed by PCATI and Defence for Children International/Palestine Section (DCIPA), another member of the SOS-Torture network, of the alarming situation of many other Palestinian children in detention. OMCT is gravely concerned by the high number of allegations of unlawful arrests and detention, torture and ill-treatment of children while in police custody or in Israeli detention facilities, as well as the poor and often inhuman living conditions there.[33]

Due to overcrowding in permanent facilities, so-called "temporary centers" without special provisions for minors continue to hold child detainees for prolonged periods of time. This even concerns child prisoners who have been tried, even though they are supposed to be moved to permanent facilities under Israeli rules. In Atzion Military Detention Centre outside Bethlehem, 7 prisoners are being held in cells of 2.5m x 2.5m, with no distinction made between adults and children. Moreover, Atzion is reported to be the facility with the harshest living conditions. Apart from the very serious and continuing allegations of torture and ill-treatment, inmates are refused basic hygiene, adequate food and access to toilets.[34]

There are 6,000 Palestinians in Israeli prisons and detention centers. Some have been tried, some have not. The number of those detained includes 175 juveniles and 70 women.[35]

The living conditions inside the prisons are very difficult due to the fact that the prison administrations do not take into account the minimum needs of the prisoners. On the contrary, they violate the simplest living requirements, including food, water and basic needs, and they violate the international standards and instruments for the protection of human rights. Moreover, the prison administrations do not provide the detainees with the minimum-needed medical care, and the ill prisoners are not examined by doctors or given the needed medicine or treatment, especially those who have chronic diseases, such as cancer, failure of kidneys, etc. [36]

The broad and arbitrary detentions carried out by the occupation forces against the Palestinian civilians represent a form of collective punishment in contradiction to article 13 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. This article states that “No protected person may be punished for an offense he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.” [37]

The Israeli occupation forces give themselves the right, through the British Emergency Regulations, to detain any Palestinian for a long period without a specific charge or trial. This procedure is in contradiction to the provisions of Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949.[38]

Over the years, Israel held Palestinians in prolonged detention without trying them and without informing them of the suspicions against them.[39]

In a publication entitled Back to a Routine of Torture covering the period September 2001 to April 2003, PCATI estimated that for the first half of 2003:

…each month, hundreds of Palestinians have been subjected to one degree or another of torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, at the hands of the GSS (General Security Service) and bodies working on its behalf. … The bodies which are supposed to keep the GSS under scrutiny and ensure that interrogations are conducted lawfully act, instead, E/CN.4/2004/6 page 13 as rubber stamps for decisions by the GSS.[40]

Interrogation by torture is absolutely prohibited by Israeli and international law. Despite this, Israeli security forces breach the prohibition and torture Palestinians during interrogation.[41]

In July 2001, B'Tselem published a report on torture that occurred from October 2000 to January 2001 during interrogations of Palestinians in the Gush Etzion police station. The victims were youngsters aged fourteen to seventeen. In most of the cases, the police arrested them at their homes in the middle of the late night and took them to the police station in Gush Etzion, where police interrogators tortured them until morning. The police objective was to obtain confessions and information about other minors. The methods of torture described in the report included: Forcing the minors to stand in painful positions for prolonged periods; Beating the minors severely for many hours, at times with the use of various objects; Splashing cold water on the detainees in the facility's courtyard in wintry conditions; Pushing the minor's head into the toilet bowl and flushing the toilet; Making death threats; Cursing and degrading the minors[42]

Attacks on medical personnel

From Sep 29, 2000, to June 27, 2003, there were 966 recorded cases of the Israeli Army delaying PRCS ambulances (PRCS defines a delay as an ambulance being held for more than 15 minutes per checkpoint) or denying them passage. [43]

There are many ways in which the Israeli Army denies access to ambulances. Sometimes soldiers at checkpoints refuse an ambulance passage; this is the most common form of denial of access. In other cases, the ambulances come under attack, and are forced to leave the scene.[44]

Nablus, 3 February 2003 (21:00): Israeli soldiers at the Jordan Street checkpoint stopped an ambulance at gunpoint and forced it to turn back. The ambulance was attempting to carry a child with heart disease from her home in the Balata Refugee Camp to a hospital in Nablus.[45]

Drivers, medics and patients are questioned at checkpoints, where some Israeli soldiers make life and death decisions as to how urgently patients require medical care, and how thoroughly an ambulance should be searched.[46]

According to the Palestine Ministry of Health, 91 patients have died at Israeli Army checkpoints between the beginning of Second Intifada and April 5th, 2003.[47]

Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs) are often detained while on duty. Whether or not there is a patient in the ambulance at the time, the detention of EMTs ties up medical teams and ambulances, keeping them from their humanitarian work. Between September 29, 2002, and June 27, 2003, 80 PRCS volunteers and staff members were arrested while on duty. This figure does not include the short-term, informal detentions that commonly occur at checkpoints.[48]

Between September 29, 2000, and June 27, 2003, PRCS has recorded 255 Israeli attacks on ambulances. 118 PRCS ambulances have been damaged, some more than once. Of these damaged ambulances, 28 are beyond repair. [49]

On Oct. 26, during the clashes between the Palestinians and the Israeli troops in Zeha village near Tulkarem (North West Bank), Mr. Emad Hussein Abu-Snahneh, suffering from severe tear gas inhalation and asthma, began to suffocate. PRCS teams at 15:30 took Mr. Snahneh in an ambulance (number 61-900-90) to transfer to hospital due the severity of the case. An estimated thirty Israeli troops stopped the ambulance and threatened the team at gunpoint. The team attempted to communicate with the soldiers explaining that the severity of the case and need for hospital care. In spite of all the attempts to convince the soldiers to permit the vehicle to pass, the soldiers removed Mr. Snahneh form the ambulance, struck him in the face and shoulder and carried him to a military vehicle.[50]

Humanitarian crisis: Poverty and Malnutrition

The United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland […] noted that the UN is increasingly worried with the situation there in the Occupied Territories, and that there could be a humanitarian crisis of enormous proportions if the situation continues to deteriorate, and the humanitarian access to the people gets worse. Egeland said […] that more than one million Palestinians could be engulfed in this deteriorating situation.[51]

Some 60% of the Palestinian population is living below the poverty level of US $2.10 per day and unemployment has risen to close to 50 percent.[52]

22% of Palestinian children under 5 are suffering from malnutrition and 9.3% from acute malnutrition, a three- and eight-fold increase, respectively, over 2000 figures.[53]

15.6% of Palestinian children suffer acute anemia, which could lead to permanent impairment of physical and mental development. Food consumption by Palestinians has fallen 30% on average per person and 60% of Palestinian households now live in acute poverty and half of them depend on international food aid.[54]

The dramatic decline in the standard of living among Palestinians in the Occupied Territories has led to increased malnutrition and other health problems.[55]

[1] UN Commission on Human Rights, Special Rapporteur "Statement by Special Rapporteur on adequate housing regarding house demolitions in Occupied Palestinian territories" (06.11.2003).

[2] Ibid.

[3] Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, Intifada Report, “Fact Sheet: Killings”, online at

[4] B’Tselem, The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories “Violence by Security Forces” online at .

[5] Ibid.

[6] B’Tselem, The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories “Clarification on the Data on Persons Killed during the al-Aqsa Intifada” online at .

[7] Supra note 3.

[8] B’Tselem, The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories “Human Shields” online at

[9] UN Commission on Human Rights (ECOSOC), "Report of the Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights, John Dugard, on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel since 1967, submitted in accordance with Commission resolution 1993/2 A - E/CN.4/2004/6", 08.09.2003, online at .

[10] International Herald Tribune, 22 June 2003, online at

[11] UN Commission on Human Rights, Special Rapporteur, "Statement by Special Rapporteur on adequate housing regarding house demolitions in Occupied Palestinian territories", 06.11.2003, online at

[12] B’Tselem, The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories “Destruction of Houses and Fields” online at .

[13] Ibid.

[14] Supra note 9.

[15] Ibid.

[16] Ibid.

[17] Ibid.

[18] Ibid.

[19] Ibid.

[20] Ibid.

[21] Amnesty International "Surviving under siege: The impact of movement restrictions on the right to work" (#15839, 08.09.2003).

[22] B’Tselem, The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, “Freedom of Movement” online at .

[23] B’Tselem, The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories “Sarra Checkpoint - A Week of Severe Abuse” (04.01.04) online at .

[24] Supra note 21.

[25] Ibid.

[26] Ibid.

[27] Ibid..

[28] Palestine Red Crescent Society, online at http://www.palestinercs.org.

[29] Supra note 22.

[30] B’Tselem, The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories “Policy of Closure” online at .

[31] Al Haq, ““Legal” Cover for Illegitimate Practices: Arbitrary Arrests and Prison Conditions of Palestinian Political Prisoners in Israeli Prisons and Detention Centers” online at http://www.alhaq.org/humanrights/index.htm.

[32] OMCT - World Organisation Against Torture "Israel: torture and ill-treatment of child detainees" (10.12.2003).

[33] Ibid.

[34] Ibid.

[35] Supra note 9.

[36] Ibid.

[37] Ibid.

[38] Ibid.

[39] B’Tselem, The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories “Administrative Detention” online at .

[40] Supra note 9.

[41] B’Tselem, The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories “Torture”, online at .

[42] Ibid.

[43] Palestine Red Crescent Society “Humanitarian duty: violations of International Humanitarian Law Against The Palestine Red Crescent Society” (July 2003) online at .

[44] Ibid.

[45] Ibid.

[46] Ibid.

[47] Ibid. For more information see the Ministry’s web-site at .

[48] Ibid.

[49] Ibid.

[50] Palestine Red Crescent Society “Arresting the Injured”, online at .

[51] KNA, “More than one million Palestinians can be affected by growing crisis”, 3 Feb 2004, online at .

[52] World Bank, “Two Years of Intifada, Closures and Palestinian Economic Crisis: An Assessment”, 5

March 2003, online at < http://lnweb18.worldbank.org/mna/mena.nsf/Attachments/WBGsummary-ENG/$File/WBGsummary-ENG.pdf>

[53] Deutsche Presse Agentur, "U.N.: Israel denies Palestinians' right to food and water (DPA)", 12 Nov 2003, online at

[54] Ibid.

[55] Supra note 21.

Name *

Email *

Country

Comment *

Code*