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”On 7 October 2023, Hamas-led militant groups launched a surprise attack on Israel, in which 1,195 Israelis and foreign nationals, including 815 civilians, were killed, and 251 taken hostage with the stated goal of forcing Israel to release Palestinian prisoners.^[84][85]”

”

A surprise attack by Palestinian group Hamas on Israel – combining gunmen breaching security barriers and a barrage of rockets fired from Gaza – was launched at dawn during the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah.

Saturday’s attack came 50 years and a day after Egyptian and Syrian forces launched an assault during the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur in an effort to retrieve territory Israel had taken during a brief conflict in 1967.

Here’s how the brazen assault unfolded:

03:30 GMT – Covering rocket fire

• At about 6:30am (03:30 GMT) Hamas fired a huge barrage of rockets into southern Israel with sirens heard as far away as Tel Aviv and Beersheba.
• Hamas said it launched 5,000 rockets in an initial barrage. Israel’s military said 2,500 rockets were fired.
• Smoke billowed over residential Israeli areas and people sheltered behind buildings as sirens sounded. At least one woman was reported killed by the rockets.
• “We announce the start of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood and we announce that the first strike, which targeted enemy positions, airports, and military fortifications, exceeded 5,000 missiles and shells,” Mohammed Deif, head of the Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, said.

19:00 GMT – Fighting continues

• Israeli air attacks continued late Saturday night as did rocket fire into southern Israel.
• Israeli troops were still fighting Hamas fighters in 22 locations near the Gaza Strip – a startling sign of the breadth of the assault.
• Israel’s military said it is still fighting “hundreds” of Palestinian infiltrators

ALJAZEERA

ANALYSIS: WHY DID HAMAS ATTACK NOW AND

WHAT IS NEXT?

11 OCTOBER 2023

https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2023/10/11/analysis-why-did-hamas-attack-now-and-what-is-next

On October 7, Hamas launched a massive military operation into Israeli territory. The shooting of thousands of rockets into Israel was followed by an attack by land, air and sea, with fighters penetrating deep into territory under Israeli control. They attacked military installations and temporarily took over various settlements. The death toll among Israelis has exceeded 1,200, including more than 120 soldiers; dozens of Israeli hostages were also taken into the Gaza Strip.

The planning of the operation took somewhere between a few months and two years, per different accounts from Hamas leaders. The depth and magnitude of the attack were unprecedented and took Israel by surprise. It was a reaction to changing regional dynamics and growing Israeli aggression.

While Hamas may appear to have fulfilled its declared short-term goals of deterring Israeli violations of Al-Aqsa Mosque and taking hostages to bargain for the release of Palestinian political prisoners held in Israeli jails, it does not appear to have a long-term end game. A heavy-handed response by Israel is ongoing – already claiming more than 950 Palestinian lives – but sooner or later it will have to end with mediation.

Why did Hamas attack now?

Hamas’s move was triggered by three factors. First, the policies of the far-right Israeli government enabling settler violence in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem led to a sense of desperation among Palestinians and growing demands for a reaction. At the same time, the rising tensions in the West Bank caused by these policies necessitated the shift of Israeli forces away from the south and into the north to guard the settlements. This gave Hamas both a justification and an opportunity to attack.

Second, the Hamas leadership felt compelled to act due to the acceleration of Arab-Israeli normalisation. In recent years, this process further diminished the significance of the Palestinian issue for Arab leaders who became less keen on pressuring Israel on this matter.

If a Saudi-Israeli normalisation deal had been concluded, it would have been a turning point in the Arab-Israeli conflict, which may have eliminated the already weak chances of a two-state solution. This was also part of Hamas’s calculations.

Third, Hamas was emboldened after it managed to repair its ties with Iran. In recent years, the movement had to reconsider the political position it assumed in the wake of the Arab Spring in 2011, in opposition to Iran and its ally, the Syrian regime.

Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah has said that he was personally involved in improving the relations between Hamas and Damascus. A Hamas delegation visited Damascus in October 2022 and its political bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh travelled to Beirut in April and Tehran in June. Just last month, Nasrallah hosted the Secretary-General of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad Ziad al-Nakhalah and the deputy chief of Hamas’s political bureau Saleh al-Arouri.

Will there be a united front around Hamas?

Iran has denied direct involvement in Hamas’s operation but it has expressed support for it. Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps general Yahya Rahim Safavi said “we support this operation, and we are sure that the resistance front also supports this issue”.

However, Hamas’s realignment with the “resistance axis” does not necessarily mean there will be a united front on the ground confronting Israel. Hezbollah, for example, has not joined the fight. Currently, domestic politics in Lebanon are not conducive to a conflict with Israel, which is holding the Lebanese group back.

What Hezbollah is trying to do is to deter the Israeli army from going too far in its revenge against Hamas in Gaza, hence it is increasing the pressure on the Lebanese border. Its shelling of Israeli positions is most probably meant to have a psychological effect than a military one. It has also chosen not to overreact in relation to the killing of three of its members by Israeli bombardment.

However, both Israel and Hezbollah are on alert and tensions are high, which means miscalculations can happen.

What is Hamas’s end game?

Three days into Hamas’s surprising and overwhelming attack, it is not clear what its end game is and what it can do to reap long-term benefits. Its priority has seemed to be to take both military and civilian hostages to help deter aggressive Israeli retaliation and later exchange them for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

However, Israel does not appear to be deterred. Hamas spokesperson Abu Ubaida has said that Israeli bombardment has killed four Israeli citizens held in Gaza. He has also warned that the movement will start killing hostages if Israel strikes civilian homes in Gaza without warning; this might backfire against Hamas if implemented.

The Hamas leadership has said that the objectives of the attacks are ending “Israeli violations”, securing the release of Palestinian prisoners, and “returning to the project of establishing a state”. Hamas may be able to secure a prisoner swap deal with Israel, although, in the past, many of those released from Israeli prisons had been quickly rearrested. But the group does not have a clear roadmap for moving forward on “establishing a state” and it cannot have one separately from the Palestinian Authority in the occupied West Bank.

What is next?

Israel has struggled to recover from the attack. It has intensified its bombardment of the Gaza Strip and announced a total blockade on the coastal enclave, turning off electricity and blocking humanitarian aid. Netanyahu’s government was already facing domestic turmoil before the attack due to its judicial reforms; its stability will now be tested even further.

Israel will have to decide whether to undertake a ground invasion and if it is worth the military and political costs. Whether it proceeds with it or not, sooner or later its military operation, including the excessive bombardment of the strip, will have to come to an end. At that point, Israel will have to ask for Egypt to mediate some kind of conclusion of this escalation and a deal to exchange prisoners.

When the Israeli assault ends, Hamas, which has gained more legitimacy in Gaza and the West Bank with its operation, will also face the challenge of translating it into policies and governance that would serve the Palestinians in the long term.

The United States, for its part, will have to put its normalisation mediation plans on hold for now. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was expected in Israel and Saudi Arabia later this month to discuss normalisation talks, but his plans have changed and now include a visit to Jordan.

Given the current public mood in the Arab world after the Gaza attack, it would be too complicated to advance talks on a Saudi-Israeli deal. Most probably, these talks will be put on the shelf by the Saudis in the short term but not necessarily fully cancelled.

These developments work in Iran’s favour. With the progress of Arab-Israeli normalisation halted, Tehran can now pressure the US into re-entering a nuclear deal of some kind that would take some of the sanctions pressure off the Iranian economy.

Whatever mediation happens between Israel and Hamas eventually, it is unlikely to address the root causes of the conflict. There does not seem to be any political will within Israel to address issues like the imprisonment of Palestinians, the freezing of Palestinian funds, the dire socioeconomic conditions in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, or the continuing settlement expansion. This means the Palestinian-Israeli conflict will continue to fester and produce cycles of violence.

EINDE ARTIKEL

BASIC RULES OF THE GENEVA CONVENTIONS AND THEIR

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AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL EN HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH OVER HET

ISRAELISCHE APARTHEIDSREGIME

ASTRID ESSED

[90]

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL INVESTIGATION CONCLUDES ISRAEL

IS COMMITTING GENOCIDE AGAINST PALESTINIANS IN GAZA

5 DECEMBER 2024

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/12/amnesty-international-concludes-israel-is-committing-genocide-against-palestinians-in-gaza/

Amnesty International’s research has found sufficient basis to conclude that Israel has committed and is continuing to commit genocide against Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip, the organization said in a landmark new report published today.

The report, ‘You Feel Like You Are Subhuman’: Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza, documents how, during its military offensive launched in the wake of the deadly Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel on 7 October 2023, Israel has unleashed hell and destruction on Palestinians in Gaza brazenly, continuously and with total impunity.

“Amnesty International’s report demonstrates that Israel has carried out acts prohibited under the Genocide Convention, with the specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza. These acts include killings, causing serious bodily or mental harm and deliberately inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction. Month after month, Israel has treated Palestinians in Gaza as a subhuman group unworthy of human rights and dignity, demonstrating its intent to physically destroy them,” said Agnès Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International.

“Our damning findings must serve as a wake-up call to the international community: this is genocide. It must stop now.

“States that continue to transfer arms to Israel at this time must know they are violating their obligation to prevent genocide and are at risk of becoming complicit in genocide. All states with influence over Israel, particularly key arms suppliers like the USA and Germany, but also other EU member states, the UK and others, must act now to bring Israel’s atrocities against Palestinians in Gaza to an immediate end.”

Over the past two months the crisis has grown particularly acute in the North Gaza governorate, where a besieged population is facing starvation, displacement and annihilation amid relentless bombardment and suffocating restrictions on life-saving humanitarian aid.

“Our research reveals that, for months, Israel has persisted in committing genocidal acts, fully aware of the irreparable harm it was inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza. It continued to do so in defiance of countless warnings about the catastrophic humanitarian situation and of legally binding decisions from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordering Israel to take immediate measures to enable the provision of humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza,” said Agnès Callamard.

“Israel has repeatedly argued that its actions in Gaza are lawful and can be justified by its military goal to eradicate Hamas. But genocidal intent can co-exist alongside military goals and does not need to be Israel’s sole intent.”

Amnesty International examined Israel’s acts in Gaza closely and in their totality, taking into account their recurrence and simultaneous occurrence, and both their immediate impact and their cumulative and mutually reinforcing consequences. The organization considered the scale and severity of the casualties and destruction over time. It also analysed public statements by officials, finding that prohibited acts were often announced or called for in the first place by high-level officials in charge of the war efforts.

“Taking into account the pre-existing context of dispossession, apartheid and unlawful military occupation in which these acts have been committed, we could find only one reasonable conclusion: Israel’s intent is the physical destruction of Palestinians in Gaza, whether in parallel with, or as a means to achieve, its military goal of destroying Hamas,” said Agnès Callamard.

“The atrocity crimes committed on 7 October 2023 by Hamas and other armed groups against Israelis and victims of other nationalities, including deliberate mass killings and hostage-taking, can never justify Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.”

International jurisprudence recognizes that the perpetrator does not need to succeed in their attempts to destroy the protected group, either in whole or in part, for genocide to have been committed. The commission of prohibited acts with the intent to destroy the group, as such, is sufficient.

Amnesty International’s report examines in detail Israel’s violations in Gaza over nine months between 7 October 2023 and early July 2024. The organization interviewed 212 people, including Palestinian victims and witnesses, local authorities in Gaza, healthcare workers, conducted fieldwork and analysed an extensive range of visual and digital evidence, including satellite imagery. It also analysed statements by senior Israeli government and military officials, and official Israeli bodies. On multiple occasions, the organization shared its findings with the Israeli authorities but had received no substantive response at the time of publication.

Unprecedented scale and magnitude

Israel’s actions following Hamas’s deadly attacks on 7 October 2023 have brought Gaza’s population to the brink of collapse. Its brutal military offensive had killed more than 42,000 Palestinians, including over 13,300 children, and injured over 97,000 more, by 7 October 2024, many of them in direct or deliberately indiscriminate attacks, often wiping out entire multigenerational families. It has caused unprecedented destruction, which experts say occurred at a level and speed not seen in any other conflict in the 21st century, levelling entire cities and destroying critical infrastructure, agricultural land and cultural and religious sites. It thereby rendered large swathes of Gaza uninhabitable.

Mohammed, who fled with his family from Gaza City to Rafah in March 2024 and was displaced again in May 2024, described their struggle to survive in horrifying conditions:

“Here in Deir al-Balah, it’s like an apocalypse… You have to protect your children from insects, from the heat, and there is no clean water, no toilets, all while the bombing never stops. You feel like you are subhuman here.”

Israel imposed conditions of life in Gaza that created a deadly mixture of malnutrition, hunger and diseases, and exposed Palestinians to a slow, calculated death. Israel also subjected hundreds of Palestinians from Gaza to incommunicado detention, torture and other ill-treatment.

Viewed in isolation, some of the acts investigated by Amnesty International constitute serious violations of international humanitarian law or international human rights law. But in looking at the broader picture of Israel’s military campaign and the cumulative impact of its policies and acts, genocidal intent is the only reasonable conclusion.

Intent to destroy

To establish Israel’s specific intent to physically destroy Palestinians in Gaza, as such, Amnesty International analysed the overall pattern of Israel’s conduct in Gaza, reviewed dehumanizing and genocidal statements by Israeli government and military officials, particularly those at the highest levels, and considered the context of Israel’s system of apartheid, its inhumane blockade of Gaza and the unlawful 57-year-old military occupation of the Palestinian territory.

Before reaching its conclusion, Amnesty International examined Israel’s claims that its military lawfully targeted Hamas and other armed groups throughout Gaza, and that the resulting unprecedented destruction and denial of aid were the outcome of unlawful conduct by Hamas and other armed groups, such as locating fighters among the civilian population or the diversion of aid. The organization concluded these claims are not credible. The presence of Hamas fighters near or within a densely populated area does not absolve Israel from its obligations to take all feasible precautions to spare civilians and avoid indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks. Its research found Israel repeatedly failed to do so, committing multiple crimes under international law for which there can be no justification based on Hamas’s actions. Amnesty International also found no evidence that the diversion of aid could explain Israel’s extreme and deliberate restrictions on life-saving humanitarian aid.

In its analysis, the organization also considered alternative arguments such as ones that Israel was acting recklessly or that it simply wanted to destroy Hamas and did not care if it needed to destroy Palestinians in the process, demonstrating a callous disregard for their lives rather than genocidal intent.

However, regardless of whether Israel sees the destruction of Palestinians as instrumental to destroying Hamas or as an acceptable by-product of this goal, this view of Palestinians as disposable and not worthy of consideration is in itself evidence of genocidal intent.

Many of the unlawful acts documented by Amnesty International were preceded by officials urging their implementation. The organization reviewed 102 statements that were issued by Israeli government and military officials and others between 7 October 2023 and 30 June 2024 and dehumanized Palestinians, called for or justified genocidal acts or other crimes against them.

Of these, Amnesty International identified 22 statements made by senior officials in charge of managing the offensive that appeared to call for, or justify, genocidal acts, providing direct evidence of genocidal intent. This language was frequently replicated, including by Israeli soldiers on the ground, as evidenced by audiovisual content verified by Amnesty International showing soldiers making calls to “erase” Gaza or to make it uninhabitable, and celebrating the destruction of Palestinian homes, mosques, schools and universities.

Killing and causing serious bodily or mental harm

Amnesty International documented the genocidal acts of killing and causing serious mental and bodily harm to Palestinians in Gaza by reviewing the results of investigations it conducted into 15 air strikes between 7 October 2023 and 20 April 2024 that killed at least 334 civilians, including 141 children, and wounded hundreds of others. Amnesty International found no evidence that any of these strikes were directed at a military objective.

In one illustrative case, on 20 April 2024, an Israeli air strike destroyed the Abdelal family house in the Al-Jneinah neighbourhood in eastern Rafah, killing three generations of Palestinians, including 16 children, while they were sleeping.

While these represent just a fraction of Israel’s aerial attacks, they are indicative of a broader pattern of repeated direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects or deliberately indiscriminate attacks. The attacks were also conducted in ways designed to cause a very high number of fatalities and injuries among the civilian population.

Inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about physical destruction

The report documents how Israel deliberately inflicted conditions of life on Palestinians in Gaza intended to lead, over time, to their destruction. These conditions were imposed through three simultaneous patterns that repeatedly compounded the effect of each other’s devastating impacts: damage to and destruction of life-sustaining infrastructure and other objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population; the repeated use of sweeping, arbitrary and confusing mass “evacuation” orders to forcibly displace almost all of Gaza’s population; and the denial and obstruction of the delivery of essential services, humanitarian assistance and other life-saving supplies into and within Gaza.

After 7 October 2023, Israel imposed a total siege on Gaza cutting off electricity, water and fuel. In the nine months reviewed for this report, Israel maintained a suffocating, unlawful blockade, tightly controlled access to energy sources, failed to facilitate meaningful humanitarian access within Gaza,  and obstructed the import and delivery of life-saving goods and humanitarian aid, particularly to areas north of Wadi Gaza. They thereby exacerbated an already existing humanitarian crisis. This, combined with the extensive damage to Gaza’s homes, hospitals, water and sanitation facilities and agricultural land, and mass forced displacement, caused catastrophic levels of hunger and led to the spread of diseases at alarming rates. The impact was especially harsh on young children and pregnant or breastfeeding women, with anticipated long-term consequences for their health.

Time and again, Israel had the chance to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza, yet for over a year it has repeatedly refused to take steps blatantly within its power to do so, such as opening sufficient access points to Gaza or lifting tight restrictions on what could enter the Strip  or their obstruction of aid deliveries within Gaza while the situation has grown progressively worse.

Through its repeated “evacuation” orders Israel displaced nearly 1.9 million Palestinians – 90% of Gaza’s population – into ever-shrinking, unsafe pockets of land under inhumane conditions, some of them up to 10 times. These multiple waves of forced displacement left many jobless and deeply traumatized, especially since some 70% of Gaza’s residents are refugees or descendants of refugees whose towns and villages were ethnically cleansed by Israel during the 1948 Nakba.

Despite conditions quickly becoming unfit for human life, Israeli authorities refused to consider measures that would have protected displaced civilians and ensured their basic needs were met, showing that their actions were deliberate.

They refused to allow those displaced to return to their homes in northern Gaza or relocate temporarily to other parts of the Occupied Palestinian Territory or Israel, continuing to deny many Palestinians their right to return under international law to areas they were displaced from in 1948. They did so knowing that there was nowhere safe for Palestinians in Gaza to flee to.

Accountability for genocide

“The international community’s seismic, shameful failure for over a year to press Israel to end its atrocities in Gaza, by first delaying calls for a ceasefire and then continuing arms transfers, is and will remain a stain on our collective conscience,” said Agnès Callamard.

“Governments must stop pretending they are powerless to end this genocide, which was enabled by decades of impunity for Israel’s violations of international law. States need to move beyond mere expressions of regret or dismay and take strong and sustained international action, however uncomfortable a finding of genocide may be for some of Israel’s allies.

“The International Criminal Court’s (ICC) arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity issued last month offer real hope of long-overdue justice for victims. States must demonstrate their respect for the court’s decision and for universal international law principles by arresting and handing over those wanted by the ICC.

“We are calling on the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to urgently consider adding genocide to the list of crimes it is investigating and for all states to use every legal avenue to bring perpetrators to justice. No one should be allowed to commit genocide and remain unpunished.”

Amnesty International is also calling for all civilian hostages to be released unconditionally and for Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups responsible for the crimes committed on 7 October to be held to account.

The organization is also calling for the UN Security Council to impose targeted sanctions against Israeli and Hamas officials most implicated in crimes under international law.

Background

On 7 October 2023 Hamas and other armed groups indiscriminately fired rockets into southern Israel and carried out deliberate mass killings and hostage-taking there, killing 1,200 people, including over 800 civilians, and abducted 223 civilians and captured 27 soldiers. The crimes perpetrated by Hamas and other armed groups during this attack will be the focus of a forthcoming Amnesty International report.

Since October 2023, Amnesty International has conducted in-depth investigations into the multiple violations and crimes under international law committed by Israeli forces, including direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects and deliberately indiscriminate attacks killing hundreds of civilians, as well as other unlawful attacks on and collective punishment of the civilian population. The organization has called on the Office of the ICC Prosecutor to expedite its investigation into the situation in the State of Palestine and is campaigning for an immediate ceasefire.

For the Hebrew translation of this press release, click here.

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL

ISRAEL/OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORY:

”YOU FEEL YOU ARE SUBHUMAN”:

ISRAEL’S GENOCIDE AGAINST PALESTINIANS IN GAZA

5 DECEMBER 2024

https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde15/8668/2024/en/

This report documents Israel’s actions during its offensive on the occupied Gaza Strip from 7 October 2023. It examines the killing of civilians, damage to and destruction of civilian infrastructure, forcible displacement, the obstruction or denial of life-saving goods and humanitarian aid, and the restriction of power supplies. It analyses Israel’s intent through this pattern of conduct and statements by Israeli decision-makers. It concludes that Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.
A stand-alone executive summary is available in English and other languages: ‘You Feel Like You Are Subhuman’: Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza: Executive Summary (Index: MDE 15/8744/2024).

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL REPORT

YOU FEEL YOU ARE SUBHUMAN

ISRAEL’S GENOCIDE AGAINST PALESTINIANS IN GAZA

DECEMBER 2024

file:///C:/Users/Astrid/Downloads/MDE1586682024ENGLISH%20(2).pdf

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”As part of the blockade, Israel prohibited travel in and out of Gaza, the import of goods into Gaza – including restrictions on food items, toys and paper – and export to Israel, the West Bank or foreign countries.”

BTSELEM.ORG

THE GAZA STRIP

11 NOVEMBER 2017

The Gaza Strip is the scene of a humanitarian disaster that has nothing to do with natural causes – it is entirely man-made, a direct result of official Israeli policy. Israel can choose to change this policy and considerably improve the lives of Gaza’s residents. It can also choose to continue this cruel, unjustifiable policy, which sentences the nearly two million people living in Gaza to a life of abject poverty and nearly inhuman conditions.

In early September 2015, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development published a report on the situation in Gaza after eight years of blockade and three rounds of fighting between Israel and the Palestinians. The report cautioned that without significant changes to Israel’s policy, Gaza has no chance of recovery and will become unlivable by 2020. Rather than change its policies in the time that has elapsed since the report, Israel has made them stricter, the situation has deteriorated and Gaza has long since become unliveable.

Israel’s responsibility

Israel contends that its role as occupying power in the Gaza Strip ended in September 2005, when it dismantled all settlements there, withdrew its military forces and declared the end of the military government. Further to this position, Israel contends that it no longer has any obligations or responsibilities toward Gaza residents, other than minimal humanitarian duties designed to prevent a serious crisis in the Gaza Strip.

This position is entirely baseless. In the early years following the implementation of Israel’s Disengagement Plan, there was some vagueness regarding Israel’s legal obligations toward Gaza. However, since then, the conception of degree of responsibility as commensurate with degree of control has taken root. Though Israel is clearly no longer responsible for keeping the peace inside Gaza, and is not generally obliged to see to the welfare of its residents under the laws of occupation, it is still the power that shapes the daily lives of Gaza residents, and as such, also bears responsibility towards them.

Although Israel declared an end to its military administration in Gaza, it continues to control critical aspects of life there. It controls all border crossings by land, apart from Rafah, as well as Gaza’s sea and air space. This control allows Israel to exclusively monitor the movement of people and goods in and out of Gaza, which it regulates according to Israeli interests. This holds true even when Gaza residents wish only to transit through Israel in order to reach the West Bank or other countries.

Rafah Crossing, which is subject to Egyptian control, has been closed for the past few years.  Egyptian authorities open it only a few days every year. Yet even then, it may be used only by individuals who meet strict criteria – which are changed every so often. Regardless, using this crossing to travel to other countries involves a long and often dangerous journey; when the destination is no further than the West Bank (including East Jerusalem), or Jordan, this lengthy journey is particularly unreasonable.

The blockade and its ramifications

Isolating Gaza from the rest of the world, including separating it from the West Bank, is part of a longstanding Israeli policy. The implementation began in the 1990s, with the imposition of a closure on all the Occupied Territories and the introduction of the requirement for every Palestinian from these territories – with the exception of areas annexed to Israel – to request a personal permit to enter Israel, even if only for the purpose of travel between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip or abroad. Over the years, Israel has made it increasingly difficult to obtain these permits.

After the second intifada broke out, Israel tightened the restrictions on Palestinian travel, imposing serious restrictions on travel to and from the Gaza Strip, and cutting it off from the West Bank almost completely. Entry of Gaza residents into Israel for the purpose of family visits or reunification with a spouse was prohibited. Visits by Palestinian citizens of Israel and residents of East Jerusalem to relatives in Gaza were reduced to a minimum. In addition, Israel severely restricted the ability of the entire population of Gaza to travel abroad, with many prohibited from doing so altogether. Import and export were restricted and often halted. Israel also banned most Gaza residents from working inside Israel, taking away the source of income of tens of thousands. The restrictions Israel imposed on the movement of goods and workers caused a deep recession in Gaza, impaired its residents’ earning capacity and caused a sharp decline in living standards.

In the summer of 2007, after Hamas took over the Gaza Strip, Israel used its control over the crossings to put Gaza under a blockade overnight, turning almost two million people into prisoners inside the Gaza Strip, effecting an economic collapse and propelling Gaza residents into almost full dependency on international aid.

As part of the blockade, Israel prohibited travel in and out of Gaza, the import of goods into Gaza – including restrictions on food items, toys and paper – and export to Israel, the West Bank or foreign countries. According to documents exposed in October 2010 following a Freedom of Information petition filed by the Gisha organization, it emerged that Israel had employed a “deliberate reductive policy”, based on calculations of the minimal caloric intake required for Gaza residents to survive.

In June 2010, following international pressure on Israel after the takeover of the Turkish flotilla to Gaza, Israel decided to lift some of these restrictions. Among other things, Israel agreed to expand the list of goods cleared for entry into Gaza and allowed the entry of building materials for public and housing projects. As part of this new policy, Israel replaced the narrow list of items allowed into Gaza with a list of strictly prohibited items, such as weapons, as well as a list of “dual-use” items that Israel believes could have both civilian and military uses, which require an individual permit. The second list includes hundreds of items, the lack of which prevents development of factories and restoration of civilian infrastructure. The restrictions on export remained in place even after June 2010, leaving Gaza isolated and with no real opportunity for economic development.

One aspect of the blockade is the reduction of the area where fishing is allowed in Gaza. The Oslo Accords stipulate a range of 20 nautical miles (about 37 km) off the Gaza shoreline, but Israel has never allowed fishing farther than 12 nautical miles out to sea. Over the years, Israel has gradually narrowed the fishing zone, sometimes to three nautical miles only, and currently between six and nine. The Israeli military also restricts fishing in areas bordering Israel and Egypt. Soldiers fire at fishermen alleging they have sailed beyond the restricted zone, arrest them and confiscate their equipment. In this way, Israel prevents Gaza fishermen from reaching the rich fishing grounds located further out to sea, impedes the ability of thousands of fishermen and people working in related sectors to provide for themselves and their families, and denies Gaza residents an essential source of food.

The blockade has driven Gaza’s economy into collapse. In the first quarter of 2022, unemployment reached 47%. In the under 29 age bracket, it was 75%. Some 80% of Gaza’s residents depend on humanitarian aid, and about 60% suffer from food insecurity. In the year 2000, before the blockade was imposed, Gaza’s unemployment rate was 18.9%.

Infrastructure and public services in Gaza are collapsing. Of the water pumped in the Gaza Strip, 96.2% is contaminated and unpotable. Electricity is supplied for just a few hours every day, partly because of a fuel shortage caused by high costs, and partly because of restrictions Israel imposes on the entry of spare parts to maintain existing systems – including repairing the power station it bombed in 2006.

The lack of consistent power supply has disastrous effects. Routine power cuts damage medical equipment. Hospitals are forced to rely on generators and scale back services, including delaying non-urgent surgeries and releasing patients early. The intermittent power supply also impedes the routine operation of water pumps and wells. This interferes with the supply of water for household use and public institutions, which has been greatly reduced. Residents have no choice but to cut back on the amount of water they drink and buy desalinated drinking water from private suppliers. It is estimated that 68% of the desalinated water is also contaminated, increasing the risk of disease spreading among the population. Sewage treatment facilities are not fully functional. Treatment cycles have been reduced, and sewage is pumped into the sea after being only partially treated.

The blackouts also keep Gaza residents from leading reasonable lives: they preclude normal use of washing machines, refrigerators, water heating tanks and more. These appliances are an inseparable part of life for billions of people all over the world, including people who live mere kilometers away. In Gaza, residents can only use them during the few hours in which power is available.

The level of health services offered in the Gaza Strip falls far short of meeting the needs of the population, and many essential treatments are not available there. Israel prevents doctors from traveling to medical conferences and seminars to keep abreast of innovations in their field. In addition, bringing new medical equipment into Gaza, or spare parts to repair existing equipment, requires Israeli consent, which is often given after many delays and sometimes, not given at all. Patients requiring treatment that is unavailable in Gaza have to ask Israel for permits to travel to hospitals in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. Israel rarely grants the permits, and restricts them to cases it defines as “life threatening” – a far cry from meeting the patients’ needs.

Military operations

Since the disengagement in 2005, Israel has launched several rounds of fighting in the Gaza Strip, killing thousands of people, destroying thousands of structures and severely harming infrastructure that was already on the brink of collapse. These attacks exacerbated the already dire situation in Gaza. The continued blockade prevents reconstruction, and tens of thousands of persons are still homeless in Gaza.

Operation Cast Lead: On 27 December 2008, Israel launched Operation Cast Lead, which lasted until 18 January 2009. According to data collected by B’Tselem, Israel killed 1,391 Palestinians during the fighting, at least 759 of them civilians who had not taken part in the hostilities. Of these, 318 were under the age of 18. Israel also caused extensive damage to structures and to infrastructure, including electricity, water and sewage facilities that were on the brink of collapse even before the fighting and were now rendered completely dysfunctional. According to UN figures, Israel destroyed more than 3,500 homes, leaving tens of thousands of people without shelter or a home to return to. During the offensive, Palestinians fired rocket and mortar shells toward Israel, with the deliberate intention of harming civilians. Three Israeli civilians and one member of the Israeli security forces were killed as a result. In addition, nine Israeli soldiers were killed, four of them from friendly fire.

Operation Pillar of Defense: On 14 November 2012, Israel launched Operation Pillar of Defense. The fighting lasted eight days, during which, according to B’Tselem figures, Israel killed 167 Palestinians, at least 87 of whom had not participated in the fighting. Of these, 32 were under the age of 18. Over the course of the fighting, four Israeli civilians and two members of the security forces were killed by rockets and shells that Palestinians fired from the Gaza Strip.

Operation Protective Edge: On 8 July 2014, Israel launched Operation Protective Edge. The fighting lasted 50 days, until 26 August 2014, with Israel wreaking havoc on Gaza’s civilian infrastructure. According to B’Tselem figures, during the fighting, Israel killed 2,203 Palestinians, including 1,371 who did not take part in the fighting. About a quarter of all the casualties, 548, were under age 18 and 527 of them did not take part in the fighting. During the fighting, Palestinians killed five Israeli civilians, including one child, as well as one foreign national and 63 soldiers. Three other soldiers were killed by friendly fire, and another was killed in an accident.

Guardian of the Walls: On 10 May 2021, Israel launched Operation Guardian of the Walls. The fighting lasted 11 days, until 21 May 2021, with Israel destroying buildings and civilian infrastructure. According to B’Tselem’s figures, during the fighting, Israel killed 232 Palestinians, including 137 who did not take part in the fighting, 53 of whom were under age 18. During the fighting, six Israeli civilians and three foreign nationals were killed by rockets that Palestinians fired. One member of the security forces was killed by Palestinian fire.

“No go” zones

Israel treats an area inside the Gaza Strip, near the border fence, as its own territory, using it to create a “buffer zone” inside the already narrow Strip. After the second intifada broke out, the military declared a vast area near the Gaza-Israel border, much of it farmland, off-limits to Palestinians. It never officially announced this policy or clarified to the residents which areas exactly were off limits to them, which increases the danger they face.

To enforce this access ban, the military has introduced open-fire regulations that permit firing at Palestinians found inside the zone – even if they pose no threat to anyone’s life. The implementation of these regulations has resulted in the killing of at least 87 Palestinians who did not take part in fighting from the time the Disengagement Plan was implemented in September 2005 until the end of May 2022, excluding rounds of fighting. Of these casualties, 41 were killed when they were in these zones as part of their daily routine, including local residents and farmers. Fourteen more people were killed when they approached the fence, planning to cross it in search of work inside Israel.

Another measure employed by the military to enforce the prohibition on approaching the fence is spraying herbicides on crops near the fence – on the Gazan side. The spraying is done without advance notice, and without alerting residents that they must protect crops that lie several hundred meters away from the fence, which are also harmed by the spraying. Israel has also destroyed vast areas near the border during the rounds of fighting, including demolishing entire neighbourhoods.

In the past, Gaza residents grew fruit trees and kept hothouses in these areas. Some were used for grazing livestock raised for food. However, because of Israel’s policy, and after the military destroyed various crops in the area, many farmers had to switch to crops that require less maintenance and that the army cannot claim block its field of vision. Today, the area is mostly home to dryland farming crops, which require no irrigation, such as wheat, barley, beans and various kinds of vegetables.

The Great March of Return protests

On 30 March 2018 – Land Day – Palestinians in the Gaza Strip began to hold regular protests along the perimeter fence, demanding an end to the blockade Israel has imposed on the Strip since 2007 and fulfillment of the right of return. The protests, held mostly on Fridays with tens of thousands participating, including children, women and seniors, continued until the end of 2019.

Israel was quick to frame the protests as illegitimate even before they began. It made various attempts to prevent the demonstrations and declared in advance it would violently disperse the protesters. The military deployed dozens of snipers along the fence, and various officials clarified that the open-fire regulations would permit lethal fire against anyone attempting to approach the fence or damage it. When Gaza residents went ahead with the demonstrations regardless, Israel made good on its threats and its open-fire regulations permitted use of live fire against unarmed protestors. As a result, 223 Palestinians, 46 of them under the age of 18, were killed and some 8,000 injured. The vast majority of the persons killed or injured were unarmed and posed no threat to the well-armored soldiers standing on the other side of the fence.

Israel responded to international criticism of the casualty toll by saying it would investigate the incidents. Yet today, more than forty months after the first demonstration, it is clear that the military’s investigations in relation to the Gaza protests were never intended to ensure justice for the victims or to deter troops from similar action. These investigations – much like the investigations conducted by the military law enforcement system in other cases in which soldiers have harmed Palestinians – are part of Israel’s whitewashing mechanism, and their main purpose remains to silence external criticism, so that Israel can continue to implement its policy unchanged.

EINDE BERICHT

”GENEVA, 14 June 2013 – The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel since 1967, Richard Falk, called today on Israel to end its blockade over the Gaza Strip, six years after it was tightened following the Hamas takeover in June 2007”

UNITED NATIONS

COLLECTIVE PUNISHMENT IN GAZA MUST END:

ISRAEL’S BLOCKADE ENTERS IN IT’S 7TH YEAR-

UN SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR

14 JUNE 2013

https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2013/06/collective-punishment-gaza-must-end-israels-blockade-enters-its-7th-year-un

GENEVA, 14 June 2013 – The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel since 1967, Richard Falk, called today on Israel to end its blockade over the Gaza Strip, six years after it was tightened following the Hamas takeover in June 2007. The human suffering of the land, sea and air blockade imposed on the 1.75 million Palestinians living in one of the most densely populated and impoverished areas of the world has been devastating.

“Six years of Israel’s calculated strangulation of the Gaza Strip has stunted the economy and has kept most Gazans in a state of perpetual poverty and aid dependency,” said the UN expert. “Whether it is fishermen unable to go beyond six nautical miles from the shore, farmers unable to access their land near the Israeli fence, businessmen suffering from severe restrictions on the export of goods, students denied access to education in the West Bank, or patients in need of urgent medical attention refused access to Palestinian hospitals in the West Bank, the destructive designs of blockade have been felt by every single household in Gaza. It is especially felt by Palestinian families separated by the blockade,” he added.

“The people of Gaza have endured the unendurable and suffered what is insufferable for six years. Israel’s collective punishment of the civilian population in Gaza must end today,” said the Special Rapporteur.

“Israel has the responsibility as the Occupying Power to protect the civilian population. But instead of allowing a healthy people and economy to flourish, Israeli authorities have sealed off the Gaza Strip. According to statistics released by the Israeli Ministry of Defense, last month’s exports out of Gaza consisted of 49 truckloads of empty boxes, three truckloads of spices, one truckload of cut flowers, and one truckload of furniture,” he said. In 2012, the total number of truckloads of exports leaving Gaza was 254, compared to 9,787 in 2005 before the tightening of the blockade.

“It does not take an economist to figure out that such a trickle of goods out of Gaza is not the basis of a viable economy,” noted the UN expert. “The easing of the blockade announced by Israel in June 2010 after its deadly assault on the flotilla of ships carrying aid to the besieged population resulted only in an increase in consumer goods entering Gaza, and has not improved living conditions for most Gazans. Since 2007, the productive capacity of Gaza has dwindled with 80 percent of factories in Gaza now closed or operating at half capacity or less due to the loss of export markets and prohibitively high operating costs as a result of the blockade. 34 percent of Gaza’s workforce is unemployed including up to half the youth population, 44 percent of Gazans are food insecure, 80 percent of Gazans are aid recipients,” he said.

“To make matters worse, 90 percent of the water from the Gaza aquifer is unsafe for human consumption without treatment, and severe fuel and electricity shortage results in outages of up to 12 hours a day. Only a small proportion of Gazans who can afford to obtain supplies through the tunnel economy are buffered from the full blow of the blockade, but tunnels alone cannot meet the daily needs of the population in Gaza.”

“Last year, the United Nations forecast that under existing conditions, Gaza would be uninhabitable by 2020. Less optimistic forecasts presented to me were that the Gaza Strip may no longer be viable only three years from now,” said the Special Rapporteur. “It’s clear that the Israeli authorities set out six years ago to devitalize the Gazan population and economy,” he said, referring to a study undertaken by the Israeli Ministry of Defense in early 2008 detailing the minimum number of calories Palestinians in Gaza need to consume on a daily basis to avoid malnutrition. The myriad of restrictions imposed by Israel do not permit civilians in Gaza to develop to their full potential, and enjoy and exercise fully their human rights.

ENDS

ENDS

In 2008, the UN Human Rights Council designated Richard Falk (United States of America) as the fifth Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights on Palestinian territories occupied since 1967. The mandate was originally established in 1993 by the UN Commission on Human Rights.

Learn more, log on to: http://www2.ohchr.org/english/countries/ps/mandate/index.htm

UN Human Rights – Occupied Palestinian Territories: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/countries/MENARegion/Pages/PSIndex.aspx

UN Human Rights – Israel: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Countries/MENARegion/Pages/ILIndex.aspx

For more information and media requests, please contact Kevin Turner (kturner@ohchr.org) or Kiyohiko Hasegawa khasegawa@ohchr.org) or write to sropt@ohchr.org

For media inquiries related to other UN independent experts:
Cécile Pouilly, UN Human Rights – Media Unit (+ 41 22 917 9310 / cpouilly@ohchr.org)

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HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH

LETTER TO OLMERT: STOP THE BLOCKADE OF GAZA

20 NOVEMBER 2008

https://www.hrw.org/news/2008/11/20/letter-olmert-stop-blockade-gaza

November 20, 2008
Dear Prime Minister Olmert,
We are writing to express our deep concern about Israel’s continuing blockade of the Gaza Strip, a measure that is depriving its population of food, fuel, and basic services, and constitutes a form of collective punishment.

The latest measures, a complete closure of all Gaza border crossings since November 5, are part of an ongoing policy by your government that has prevented the normal flow of goods and people in and out of Gaza since January 2006. It has contributed to a humanitarian crisis, deepened poverty and ruined the economy. We urge your government to abandon this policy.

Your government states that this latest blockade was in response to Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel, in which two Israel civilians were injured (on November 14 and 16), and over a dozen others treated for shock. Human Rights Watch has repeatedly condemned deliberate and indiscriminate Palestinian rocket attacks on Israeli communities as violations of the laws of war. We recently sent a letter to Hamas leaders calling on them to renounce such attacks, and arrest and prosecute those who carry out or encourage attacks on civilians.

However, violations of the laws of war by one party to a conflict do not justify violations by the other. As such, illegal attacks by Palestinian armed groups do not justify an illegal Israeli response. Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip, an occupied territory under the Fourth Geneva Convention, constitutes collective punishment in violation of the laws of war.
While your government has eased the restrictions for one day on November 17 the humanitarian situation in Gaza is now critical as the borders remain closed. Food distribution by the United Nations to 750,000 people—half of Gaza’s population—was forced to a halt last week, and remains severely disrupted.

Israel permitted 30 trucks to enter Gaza on November 17, delivering just eight trucks of food aid for the United Nations relief agency distribution centers, enough to feed 20,000 people. Those supplies are now almost gone, according to UN officials. The agency has to import at least 15 truckloads of food daily to meet the territory’s needs. Food stocks in three UN warehouses have also been emptied.

Gaza’s main power station needs over 21 million liters of industrial diesel before it can restart power production, according to the relief agency. Gaza is currently suffering widespread power shortages with power cuts of up to 16 hours a day. On average 650,000 people–over a third of the population—are without power at any one time amid rolling power cuts throughout the territory.

The fuel and power shortages have disrupted the pumping of water from 80 percent of Gaza water wells according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Twenty percent of the population has access to water for six hours five times a week. Forty percent have access to water four days a week, and the remaining 40 percent have water for just three days a week.

No wheat grain has entered Gaza for 16 days, prompting Gaza’s largest flour mill al-Philistiniya to close, according to OCHA. A lack of cooking gas has closed 28 out of 47 pita-bread bakeries in Gaza, and bread is being rationed. There are no bakeries in production in Rafah in the south of Gaza.

The latest closures have compounded the already severe effects of a longer term blockade your government implemented when Hamas took full control of Gaza in June 2007. Other restrictions have been in place since December 2005, when Hamas won legislative elections in the West Bank and Gaza. Over the last year, this policy has deepened poverty in Gaza and cut its industrial production by over 90 percent, according to the World Bank. The Palestinian Federation of Industries estimates that as a result of import restrictions and the inability to export, only 23 of the 3,900 industries in Gaza are operating, six of which produce wheat flour, one clothing, and the remainder food processing.

These restrictions are impacting a population that is already among the poorest in the world. Close to 70 percent of the population lives in deep poverty, according the UN relief agency, UNRWA. (The agency defines deep poverty as a family of six persons or more living on income of less than US$467 per month.) Egypt has been complicit in the blockade by keeping its borders with Gaza closed for much of the past year, in cooperation with your government.

Israel made a commitment in June to ease some of these restrictions – but the movement of goods into Gaza and people in and out the territory remains a fraction of what it was when borders were last opened for free trade. October’s imports represented only 21 percent of the December 2005 level (13,430 truckloads), that is prior to the Palestinian Legislative Council elections, and 26 percent of the May 2007 level, immediately before the Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip, according to OCHA. Exports from Gaza are not allowed by your government.

In September and October, Egypt and Israel allowed around 6000 pilgrims, hospital patients and some businessmen to pass through the Rafah and Erez border crossings. However, the Israeli and Egyptian governments have prevented over 800 students from leaving the territory to study abroad. Restrictions on freedom of movement for the large majority of the population remain in place, preventing their access to work, healthcare, and family outside of Gaza.

Even though Israel withdrew its permanent military forces and settlers in 2005, it remains an occupying power in Gaza under international law because it continues to exercise effective day-to-day control over key aspects of life in Gaza. Under the Fourth Geneva Convention, Israel is obliged to ensure the provision of food and medical supplies to the civilian population to the fullest extent possible.

We urge your government to immediately lift restrictions on the flow into Gaza of food, medicines, and other supplies essential for the well-being of the civilian population and to cease all measures that amount to collective punishment of the civilian population, including disruptions to the electricity supply and fuel cuts. We also urge your government to respect the right to freedom of movement, especially for those who need to travel for reasons of health or education.

We look forward to your response to this matter.

Yours sincerely,

SarahLeah Whitson
Executive Director
Middle East and North Africa Division
Human Rights Watch

[87]

GAZA IN EEN WURGGREEP

2014

Israël en Hamas vochten van 8 juli tot 26 augustus 2014 hun derde gewapende conflict in zes jaar tijd uit. Voor buitenstaanders is het onbegrijpelijk dat de moord op drie Israëlische tieners en een Palestijnse jongen kon ontaarden in een zoveelste zinloze oorlog. Tegen de achtergrond van de aanhoudende bezetting en Israëls blokkade van de Gazastrook komt deze nieuwe ronde van geweld echter niet als een verrassing. Maar ook het falende optreden van de VS en de EU, en de marginalisatie van het internationaal recht, zijn belangrijke pijnpunten.

HET RECHT VAN DE STERKSTE

Twintig jaar vredesgesprekken brachten het vooruitzicht op een Palestijnse staat niet dichterbij. In 1993 schaarden Israël en de Palestijnse Bevrijdingsorganisatie zich achter de Principeverklaring. Onder het motto ‘land voor vrede’ zou Israël zich geleidelijk aan terugtrekken uit de Palestijnse gebieden en een staat binnen de grenzen van vóór 1967 mogelijk maken. De Palestijnse Autoriteit (PA) werd opgericht om de proto-staat op te bouwen. Als leider van het diplomatieke proces stelde de Verenigde Staten zich voor als eerlijke bemiddelaar. Snel werd duidelijk dat de VS de kaart van Israël trok. Het vredesproces verzandde in een steriel proces. Er was een consensus over de bestemming – de tweestatenoplossing – al werd de weg erheen nooit uitgestippeld. Zo werden de Westoever en Gaza als een eenheid gedefinieerd en moesten ze via een brug of een tunnel verbonden worden. Israël vertikte dat en ontwikkelde een scheidingsbeleid.

Het Oslo-akkoord gaf de PA slechts beperkte territoriale controle over de Palestijnse gebieden. De struikelblokken zoals nederzettingen, grenzen, het statuut van Jeruzalem en water werden uitgesteld tot de finale statusonderhandelingen. Bovendien stelden de VS het internationaal recht als een obstakel voor, conform Israëls positie. Als bezettende macht heeft Israël duidelijke verplichtingen. Zo moet het instaan voor de veiligheid en het welzijn van de Palestijnse burgers en mag het zijn burgers niet overbrengen naar bezet gebied. In de gesprekken waren hier geen verwijzingen naar. In werkelijkheid zou Israël beslissen wat de Palestijnen krijgen.

Het vredesproces wekte de schijn dat Israël zijn bezetting zou opgeven, maar het behield de essentiële regeringsfuncties zoals controle over land, grenzen en het recht op residentie. Als een bezettende macht mag Israël de effectieve controle over de Palestijnse gebieden behouden, indien het zijn verplichtingen naleeft. Israël geniet echter de lusten maar niet de lasten van de bezetting. De PA heeft beperkte civiele bevoegdheden, maar geen vooruitzicht op soevereiniteit. Premier Netanyahu stelde in juli 2014 onomwonden dat hij nooit zal toestaan dat de PA soevereiniteit over de Westoever krijgt.

Het bewustzijn over de urgentie van de tweestatenoplossing groeit bij Europese diplomaten, ze waarschuwen dat de tijd tikt.1 Toch ondernemen de EU en de VS weinig om de situatie te veranderen. Van bij het begin van het vredesproces, zag de EU af van druk op Israël omdat dit de gesprekken zou ondermijnen. Europa hoopte dat Israël geleidelijk aan land zou opgeven. Tot op vandaag gelooft het dat de bilaterale relaties een gunstige impact op Israël zullen hebben. Door het proces van socialisering zal Israël zich conform internationale waarden gaan gedragen.

WEST BANK FIRST = GAZA LAST?

Door de meegaandheid van de VS en de EU kon Israël zijn expansiebeleid voortzetten. Het stelde dat een terugtrekking moet stroken met Israëls veiligheid. Onder het mom van veiligheid confisqueerden opeenvolgende regeringen Palestijns land en bouwden ze de nederzettingen uit. Anno 2014 wonen er meer dan 500.000 Israëlische kolonisten in 200 nederzettingen. De EU en de VS betreuren dit, maar treffen geen sancties. Israël bevindt zich in een ideale positie. Door zijn deelname aan vredesgesprekken toont het zich welwillend, het heeft een geprivilegieerd partnerschap met de EU en kan de bezetting handhaven. In plaats van zich geleidelijk terug te trekken, maakte Israël een lappendeken van de Westoever en sneed het Oost-Jeruzalem ervan af.

De afgelopen jaren waren de EU en de VS gefocust op de Westoever en de opbouw van staatsinstellingen, of liever de ineenstorting ervan. Beleidsmakers verzuchtten dat ze hun schaarse invloed moesten aanwenden om de nederzettingenbouw te beteugelen, laat staan dat ze de Palestijnse politieke en territoriale verdeeldheid ongedaan konden maken. Het motto was ‘West Bank first’. Bij de gesprekken die de VS in juli 2013 hadden opgestart, kwam Gaza nauwelijks aan bod. De gesprekken liepen in april vast wegens de nederzettingenbouw en Israëls weigering om Palestijnse gevangenen vrij te laten. Fatah en Hamas sloten een verzoeningsakkoord en kwamen overeen om een nationale consensusregering te vormen. Toen trok Israël de stekker definitief uit de gesprekken. Het wil immers niet dat er getornd wordt aan de isolatie van Gaza en doet er alles aan om eenheidsregering te voorkomen. Dit zou zijn verdeel-een-heersbeleid ondermijnen.

DE BESTRAFFING VAN GAZA

De isolatie van Gaza startte vóór de verkiezingsoverwinning van Hamas in 2006. Israël initieerde dit proces in 1991, met de bouw van een hek rond Gaza en het weren van Gazaanse arbeiders in Israël. Hiermee ving de on-ontwikkeling van Gaza aan, een ooit welvarend gebied werd economisch gewurgd en hulpafhankelijk gemaakt. Toen de Israëlische regering er in 2005 de nederzettingen ontmantelde, luidde dit geen ommekeer in. Voor Israël was de unilaterale terugtrekking een manier om zijn controle over de Westoever te behouden. Het wilde geen politieke en economische opportuniteiten creëren. Ook al trok Israël zijn soldaten terug, toch bleef het een bezettende macht door zijn controle over het luchtruim, de zee en de grensovergangen (met uitzondering van Rafah, met Egypte). Palestijnse gewapende groeperingen dreven hun raketaanvallen op en lokten hierdoor militaire operaties uit.

Toen Hamas in 2007 met geweld de macht greep in Gaza, en Fatah verjoeg, riep Israël het tot ‘vijandelijke entiteit’ uit en installeerde het de blokkade. De Israëlische regering legde beperkingen op aan commerciële import, verbood bijna alle export, en legde het verkeer van personen aan banden. Deze ‘economische oorlogsvoering’ moest de druk op Hamas vergroten. Maar vooral de bevolking werd getroffen.2 De VN bestempelde de afsluiting als een vorm van ‘collectieve bestraffing’ in strijd met Israëls verplichtingen als bezettende macht. Ondertussen versterkte Hamas zijn controle, onder meer via smokkeltunnels tussen Egypte en Rafah. Periodieke uitbarstingen van geweld waren de daaropvolgende jaren de regel.

Maar eind 2008 escaleerde het geweld en brak er een oorlog uit. Op 28 december lanceerde Israël ‘Gegoten Lood’ om de raketaanvallen te stoppen. Het leger voerde massale bombardementen uit en zette ook grondtroepen in. De Palestijnse gewapende groepen bleven echter tot op de laatste dag, 18 januari 2009, raketaanvallen op Israël uitvoeren. De balans van de oorlog was 1400 Palestijnse doden en 13 Israëlische doden. Israël had op grote schaal burgerinfrastructuur getroffen en ook de economie van Gaza in puin gelegd. Door Israëls afsluiting en het verbod op de invoer van onder meer bouwmateriaal werd de wederopbouw sterk bemoeilijkt.

November 2012 zag een nieuw gewapend conflict tussen Israël en Hamas. Na acht dagen kwamen beide partijen onder bemiddeling van Egypte overeen tot een staakt-het-vuren. Ze zouden de vijandelijkheden staken en de Israëlische regering zou de blokkade versoepelen. De eerste maanden na het conflict werden er geen raketten uit Gaza afgevuurd, maar deed het Israëlische leger wel regelmatig invallen in Gaza. Israël weet de rust aan zijn afschrikkingsbeleid en zelfbehoud van Hamas. Het stelde indirecte gesprekken over de implementatie van het staakt-het-vuren uit en verlichtte de blokkade niet. In de bufferzones, landbouwgebied aan de grens, werden boeren beschoten. De grensovergangen werden geregeld gesloten. Toch hield Hamas zich grotendeels aan het staakt-het-vuren. Het focuste op het heropbouwen van zijn arsenaal en de volgende ronde waarbij het de afsluiting met geweld zou proberen op te heffen.

Toen generaal Sisi in juli 2013 de macht in Egypte overnam en president Morsi afzette, zakte Gaza nog dieper weg. De Egyptische regering strafte Hamas, de bondgenoot van de Moslimbroeders, en vernielde het merendeel van de smokkeltunnels, waardoor Hamas een groot deel van zijn inkomsten verloor. Het verminderde ook de passage via Rafah, de enige poort naar de buitenwereld. Eind 2013 werd de situatie onhoudbaar: stroomonderbrekingen duurden 12 à 18 uur per dag, dieseltekort veroorzaakte enorme wachtrijen aan benzinestations, vuilnis stapelde zich op, de riolering begaf het, de watercrisis bereikte een dieptepunt.3

DE ONVERMIJDELIJKE VOLGENDE RONDE

De directe aanleiding tot de volgende ronde was de ontvoering en de moord op drie Israëlische jongeren bij de nederzetting Gush Etzion bij Hebron op 12 juni 2014. Toen hun lichamen op 30 juni werden teruggevonden, ontvoerden en doodden Israëlische extremisten een Palestijnse tiener. Hierop braken onlusten uit in Jeruzalem, de Negev en Galilea (waar veel Palestijnse burgers van Israël wonen). Israël legde de schuld bij Hamas en startte een grootschalige campagne van arrestaties en raids in de Westoever, ‘Brother’s Keeper’. Later kwam aan het licht dat de Israëlische veiligheidsdiensten snel na de ontvoering wisten dat de jongens dood waren. Ook kon Israël de directe betrokkenheid van het leiderschap van Hamas niet bewijzen. Israël maakte van de gelegenheid om een strafexpeditie tegen Hamas te starten en de eenheidsregering te ondermijnen. Dat was het einde van de periode van ‘rust’.

Als respons op de protesten startten andere Palestijnse gewapende groeperingen met raket- en mortieraanvallen op Israël. Hamas wou niet aan de zijlijn blijven staan en hervatte zijn raketaanvallen op 7 juli. Daags erna lanceerde Israël de operatie ‘Protective Edge’. Na tien dagen begon het leger ook met een grondoffensief. Oorspronkelijk was het doel de raketten te stoppen. Na een zware aanval via een tunnel stelde het leger zijn doel bij tot de vernieling van de tunnels. Verschillende pogingen om tot een staakt-het-vuren te komen strandden, voornamelijk omdat Hamas niet aanvaardde dat zijn eisen niet werden ingewilligd. Uiteindelijk werd op 26 augustus onder leiding van Egypte een staakt-het-vuren voor een maand afgesloten. Israël ging akkoord met de opening van Rafah en liet meer humanitaire hulp toe. Ondertussen vinden in Caïro gesprekken plaats over de heikele punten: de opening van de luchthaven, de haven en de vrijlating van gevangenen.

Het conflict maakte meer dan 2100 Palestijnse slachtoffers, waarvan 70% burgers. Aan Israëlische zijde werden er 6 burgers en 64 soldaten gedood. Opnieuw werden de burgers van Gaza het zwaarst getroffen. Moskeeën, scholen, ziekenhuizen en volledige buurten werden verwoest. Israël gebruikte massaal zware artillerie en vuurde meer dan 30.000 granaten af.4 Dat is een veelvoud van wat Israël in de oorlog van 2008-2009 afschoot. ‘Toen ik de beelden op de televisie zag, dacht ik ‘Gegoten Lood’ op steroïden’, stelt Yehuda Shaul van de Israëlische organisatie Breaking the Silence. Hij wijst erop dat artillerie geschikt is in klassieke, interstatelijke oorlogen. Maar in een dichtbevolkt gebied is het gebruik ervan bijzonder gevaarlijk. ‘Het is geen accuraat wapen. Het ontploft en doodt mensen in een straal van 50 meter en verwondt mensen in een straal van 100 meter. Bovendien vuur je ook nooitéén granaat, maar tien granatenaf om je doel te treffen. Het Israëlische leger kan niet stellen dat het alles deed om burgerslachtoffers te voorkomen’.5

WAT WIL ISRAËL BEREIKEN?

Israëls houding tegenover Hamas is dubbelzinnig. Enerzijds bestempelt het Hamas als een terroristische organisatie waar niet mee te onderhandelen valt. Anderzijds weet Israël dat het alternatief voor Hamas in Gaza niet zozeer Fatah is, dan wel nog radicalere salafistisch-jihadistische partijen. Bovendien onderhandelde Israël reeds met Hamas bij de gevangenenruil in 2011 en het staakt-het-vuren in 2012. Toch zal Israël nooit afstappen van zijn officiële discours. Sinds het losbarsten van de strijd tussen Fatah en Hamas in 2006 kant het zich tegen verzoening en ondermijnt het pogingen om tot eenheidsregering te komen.

Daarom koos de Israëlische regering voor de confrontatie. Toch schatte ze de situatie niet goed in. Ze had geen politiek doel, maar wilde veiligheid verkrijgen, en dit via luchtaanvallen. Israël wilde een grondoperatie vermijden, maar werd ertoe genoodzaakt door de aanvalstunnels van Hamas. Ook al stelde premier Netanyahu dat de operatie slaagde omdat Israël geen enkele eis van Hamas inwilligde, toch is ze geen strategisch succes.6 Hamas zaaide terreur in Israël en zette de blokkade op de agenda. De meeste Israëli’s steunden deze operatie omdat ze geen alternatief zien voor militair geweld tegen Hamas. De zelfmoordaanslagen sloegen diepe wonden en bevestigden de idee dat de Palestijnen geen kans zullen laten liggen om ‘Israël in de zee te drijven.’ Ook de raketaanvallen stuitten op veel onbegrip. ‘We trokken ons terug uit Gaza en kregen raketten als cadeau’, is een veelgehoorde verzuchting.

Het veiligheidsdenken domineert de Israëlische maatschappij. Sociologe Eva Illouz ziet de humanitaire gevoeligheid met de jaren afnemen. Palestijnen worden geweerd, wat dehumanisering in de hand werkt. Bovendien staat angst centraal in de Israëlische pysche. De angst voor de Shoah, het antisemitisme, enzovoort creëert een ‘catastrofalistisch’ denken, waarbij wordt uitgegaan van het worst case scenario. Dat maakt het makkelijker om morele normen te overschrijden.7 De onverschilligheid van veel Israëli’s voor politiek, geeft de regering ook het vrijgeleide om haar beleid voort te zetten. Slechts weinig burgers leggen de link tussen de stijgende inkomenskloof en de hoge uitgaven voor defensie en de nederzettingen.

WAT WIL HAMAS BEREIKEN?

Hamas stond vlak voor het recente conflict erg zwak. Het was de steun van Egypte en ook van Syrië, door zijn stellingname tegenover het regime, verloren. In Gaza zelf boette Hamas aan invloed in ten nadele van de Islamitische Jihad en andere salafistisch-jihadistische groepen. Hamas had het staakt-het-vuren met Israël afgedwongen maar plukte er geen vruchten van. Het gevoel groeide binnen Hamas dat het niet zoveel zou verliezen bij een conflict met Israël.8 Het zou zijn populariteit opkrikken en Israël mogelijk kunnen dwingen de blokkade te verlichten.

De noodgedwongen verzoening met Fatah had ook niet veel opgeleverd. Hamas had de voorwaarden van Fatah aanvaard. Het zou het bestuur van Gaza overdragen aan functionarissen die Fatah zou aanstellen en de grensovergangen zouden door de veiligheidsdiensten van de PA worden bemand. De eenheidsregering die in juni was gevormd, omvatte geen lid van Hamas en aanvaardde de drie voorwaarden van het Kwartet (opgeven van geweld, respect voor de vorige akkoorden en aanvaarding van Israël). De voorwaarden van Hamas werden echter niet vervuld: de opening van de overgang met Egypte en de betaling van 45.000 ambtenaren, waar Israël zich tegen kantte.

De ontwikkelingen na de moord op de Israëlische tieners zetten Hamas tot militaire actie aan. Het zag dit als een gevecht om zijn voortbestaan. Ofwel onderging Hamas Israëls langzame verstikking ofwel initieerde het een oorlog die kon leiden tot de opheffing van de blokkade.9 Hamas had zich voorbereid op deze ronde en beschouwde zichzelf naderhand als overwinnaar. Het is niet opgewassen tegen het vierde machtigste leger ter wereld, maar kan Israël pijn doen. Door de aanvalstunnels gingen strijders voor het eerst in decennia de grens over, het legde de luchthaven van Ben Goerion twee dagen plat en vuurde raketten af op alle grote steden.

Toch behaalde Hamas geen overwinning. Het ging akkoord met een staakt-het-vuren waarbij zijn voornaamste eisen zoals de opening van de luchthaven, de haven en de vrijlating van de gevangenen niet werden ingewilligd. Na Israëls uitschakeling van enkele militaire leiders zag het geen voordeel meer in de voortzetting van de strijd.10 Hamas slaagde er wel in om de blokkade op de politieke agenda te zetten. De EU en zelfs de VS erkennen dat een terugkeer tot de status quo ante onmogelijk is.

DE INTERNATIONALE GEMEENSCHAP MEET OPNIEUW MET TWEE MATEN

De VS en de Europese lidstaten riepen Israël geen halt toe en verklaarden dat Israël het recht op zelfverdediging heeft. Ze veroordeelden zijn schendingen van het internationaal humanitair recht in algemene termen. Minister Reynders stelde dat Israël en Hamas niet vergeleken kunnen worden, dat Hamas een terreurbeweging is terwijl Israël het recht en de plicht heeft om zijn bevolking te verdedigen. In de Commissie Buitenlandse Zaken ging hij nog een stap verder. ‘Het respect voor het internationaal recht, in het bijzonder het internationaal humanitair recht, is een verantwoordelijkheid van alle betrokken partijen. Dit geldt voor Israël maar ook voor andere organisaties die als terroristisch worden bestempeld. We constateren echter dat burgers geregeld als menselijke schilden worden gebruikt om militaire doelwitten te beschermen. Het leiderschap van Hamas bouwt ook bunkers onder hospitalen. Gisteren veroordeelde UNRWA dat Hamas raketten in scholen opslaat’.11

Hiermee neemt minister Reynders de retoriek van Israël over. Het voorbeeld van de menselijke schilden is problematisch omdat dit het steeds wederkerende excuus van Israël voor de vele burgerslachtoffers overneemt. En dat terwijl de VN-onderzoekscommissie na de oorlog van 2008-09 (waarin dezelfde beschuldiging werd geuit) geen aanwijzingen vond voor het gebruik van menselijke schilden door Palestijnse groepen.12 Het internationaal humanitair recht verbiedt oorlogvoering in stedelijk gebied niet. Dat kan niet gelijkgesteld worden aan het gebruik van menselijke schilden, zoals Israël doet. Het concept ‘menselijk schild’ veronderstelt dat strijders bewust de aanwezigheid van burgers gebruiken om zichzelf of andere militaire doelwitten tegen vijandelijke aanvallen te beschermen. Minister Reynders vergeet dat talloze Palestijnse burgers omkwamen bij aanvallen waar een legitiem militair doelwit afwezig was (bijvoorbeeld woningen van Hamas-leden) of die in een onaanvaardbare hoge ‘collateral damage’ resulteerden en disproportioneel waren. De Israëlische mensenrechtenorganisatie B’Tselem stelde vast dat honderden Palestijnse burgers in hun woning gedood werden.13 Met het zogenaamde gebruik van menselijke schilden door Hamas heeft dat weinig te maken.

Ook is het problematisch dat Hamas verengd wordt tot een terreurbeweging. Dat is een vrijbrief voor Israël om Hamas met alle middelen uit te schakelen. Dat is in tegenspraak met minister Reynders’ oproepen tot een wapenstilstand en zijn voorkeur voor een onderhandelde oplossing. Ondanks zijn onvoorzichtige taalgebruik lijkt hij te beseffen dat Hamas méér is dan een terreurorganisatie en dat een politieke oplossing de enig mogelijke is.

Net als de EU stelde België dat een terugkeer naar het status quo van vóór het recente conflict onaanvaardbaar is. Indien de EU een ommekeer wil , moet ze aandringen op Israëls respect voor het internationaal humanitair recht, zoals ze dit ook terecht verwacht en eist van Hamas. Dat is enige manier om het klimaat van wetteloosheid te stoppen en een echt vredesproces mogelijk te maken. Eerst en vooral moet ze Israël onder druk zetten om de blokkade daadwerkelijk op te heffen, en niet enkel de humanitaire hulp toe te laten. Israël zal zich immers verzetten tegen de wederopbouw van Gaza, de heropleving van de economie en de verbinding tussen de Westoever en Gaza. Toch moeten Europese beleidsmakers alles inzetten op ‘Gaza first’ en het plan van president Abbas om Gaza prioriteit te geven in het vredesproces.

Brigitte Herremans
Medewerker Midden Oosten bij Pax Christi en Broederlijk Delen

Noot
1/ EU Heads of Mission Jerusalem Report 2012, gelekt rapport, http://972mag.com/resource-eu-heads-of-mission-report-on-israeli-settlements/66814/.
2/ Rapporten van de Israëlische mensenrechtenorganisatie Gisha.
3/ Thrall N., Hamas’s Chances, London Review of Books, 21 augustus 2014.
4/ Harel A., Massive artillery shelling may have caused numerous civilian fatalities in Gaza, Ha’aretz, 15 augustus 2014.
5/ Gesprek met Yehuda Shaul, 3 september 2014.
6/ Sharon A., Failure in Gaza, New York Review of Books, 3 september 2014.
7/ Heyer J.A., Interview with Eva Illouz, Gaza Crisis: The Real Danger comes from Within, http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/interview-with-sociologist-eva-illouz-about-gaza-and-israeli-society-a-984536.html, 5 augustus 2014.
8/ International Crisis Group, The Next Round in Gaza, rapport 149, 15 maart 2014.
9/ Thrall N., Hamas’s Chances, London Review of Books, 21 augustus 2014.
10/ Harel A., Real Test for Gaza Truce still lies ahead, 27 augustus 2014.
11/ Minister Reynders, interventie in de Commissie Buitenlandse Zaken van de Kamer, http://www.dekamer.be/doc/CCRI/pdf/54/ic002.pdf, p. 15, 28 juli 2014.
12/ Human Rights Council, Report of the UN- Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, A/HRC/12/48, http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/12session/A-HRC-12-48.pdf, 25 september 2009.
13/ B’tselem, Families Bombed at Home, http://www.btselem.org/gaza\_strip/201407\_families, juli-augustus 2014.

EINDE

ZIE OOK WEBSITE ASTRID ESSED OVER GAZA

[BLADER DEZE GOED DOOR,

VOOR ISRAELISCHE AANVALLEN OP GAZA EEN AANTAL JAREN GELEDEN]

[85]

MONDOWEISS

THE SLOW ETHNIC CLEANSING OF EIN SAMIYA’S BEDOUIN

COMMUNITY

31 MAY 2023

Israeli settlers and military systematically made life unbearable for the Bedouin community living in the West Bank’s Ein Samiya region. On May 22 they were forced to leave their lands and were displaced for the fourth time since 1969.

On Monday, May 22, at least 16 Palestinian families (almost 170 people) were forcibly expelled from their homes near the Ein Samiya spring and the Palestinian village of Kufr Malek, 27 kilometers northeast of Ramallah.

The spring is wedged between Kufr Malek and the illegal Jewish-only colony of Kohav HaShahar and the nearby illegal outpost of Moaz Ester. The Bedouin community, part of the Ka’abneh clan, has lived in that area for more than three decades, comprising 16 families living as herders and working in agriculture.

On Wednesday evening, May 24, the Ka’abneh clan finished moving the last of their belongings to a new location a few hundred meters away from their former homes. It was a forced resettlement following weeks of settler and police harassment that made life unbearable for the community.

“What happened yesterday was a neo-Nakba,” Abu Najeh Ka’abneh, 81, told Mondoweiss on Thursday evening outside of the village of al-Mughayyir, where the community had relocated.

“Record, record,” Abu Najeh said firmly. “Don’t get the information wrong. I’ll speak slower, but focus and write.”

Sitting among a circle of men from his community as children dart in and out of the main sitting tent, Abu Najeh spoke with frustration and fear as he recounted the harrowing experience of the past week.

“The attack on Monday, May 22, was preceded by several days of continuous harassment,” Abu Najeh told Mondoweiss. “On May 16, settlers came and stole 37 sheep from our community in Ein Samiya, and I called the Red Cross to help us,” he said.

Abu Najeh had reached out to the Red Cross because the Israeli police had assaulted a 51-year-old herder from the community on May 16, claiming that his sheep belonged to one of the settlers of the Kohav HaShachar settlement.

“When the herder, Ata, wanted to say something, the police handcuffed him,” Abu Najeh said, taking a deep breath before continuing. “And when the herder — he’s the owner of the sheep — used his phone to try and call one of us, the police took it from him.”

The community’s youth eventually saw the altercation with the police and spread the news about the incident until it reached Abu Najeh. “This is a kidnapping, no?”

According to the community members, Ata was released at around 9:00 p.m. on Tuesday, the 16th. “He was fined 1500 shekels, and his 37 sheep were never returned,” Abu Najeh testified. “The price of a single sheep is between 1200-2000 shekels. Do the math,” Abu Najeh said, repeating once more the number of sheep stolen: “Thirty-seven.” The man’s entire livelihood depended on the livestock, with a family of 20 dependent on him for their daily needs.

A few days later, Abu Najeh and 170 others in his community were forced to pack up what they could manage to carry from their homes and belongings.

“As Palestinians, who must protect us? Shouldn’t it be our representatives?” Khader Ka’abneh, another member of the Bedouin community, told Mondoweiss. Standing up from his seated position, Khader began to release his pent-up indignation. “Unfortunately, during the Oslo Accords, our issues were not discussed, and what we experienced days ago is an even bigger Nakba.”

For the Bedouin communities across Palestine, the herding lifestyle they uphold allows them to travel around Palestine’s landscape, further solidifying the presence of Palestinians in various areas around Jericho, the Jordan Valley, and the Mua’arajat — all at risk of Israeli annexation. Yet the burdens of surviving, coupled with the internalization of a feeling of duty towards protecting the land from settler theft, weigh heavily on Palestinian Bedouins.

“That was the only home my family has known,” Umm Najeh, Abu Najeh’s wife, told Mondoweiss as she sat on a plastic chair in a newly erected Bedouin tent less than 12 hours after the expulsion. “I have given birth to all eight of my children on that land.”

Umm Najeh’s eldest son is 32 years old, and her youngest is 12. Neither knows a home outside of the hills they have wandered with their sheep near Kufr Malek their entire lives.

“The children are constantly afraid of them,” Umm Najeh said as Jamal, 12, passed the tent where she and other women from the community sat, rebuilding their homes and arranging what little remained of their belongings.

Slow ethnic cleansing

“The settlers just kept coming more often, every night and almost daily,” Umm Najah told Mondoweiss as she washed and chopped some parsley for dinner.

“Look, before we used to be able to call the police to interfere when settlers attack,” Abu Najeh explained. “Now, in the last two years or so, the police themselves have been initiating the assaults.”

According to the community, Israeli border police have not only been guarding settlers during their rampages but have at times directly joined in on the violence. “If the police saw our blood spilling in front of them from the settlers, they would still call us liars,” Abu Najeh explained.

Palestinian Bedouins mostly live in Area C, which according to the Oslo Accords comprises more than 65% of the West Bank, and is under settler and Israeli military rule. This means that the Palestinian Authority (PA) has no jurisdiction in the area, so for Palestinian Bedouins, the only recourse in the face of settler violence is to appeal to the Israeli authorities.

In addition to the intensified violence to which the Ka’abneh community has been exposed over the past five years, the Bedouin clan has also become financially drained due to the theft of their sheep and livestock. Coupled with settlers’ night incursions aiming to push them out, they were eventually forced to relocate to the village of al-Mughayyer — the product of a policy of slow ethnic cleansing by making life so unbearable that they leave.

The community fears they may be seen as having given up on their lands in Ein Samiya. “There are people that say we just chose to leave,” Khader told Mondoweiss, in a voice more angry than pained. “I see on social media, some said we just chose to leave. But those five years of settler attacks on our children and women, that was enough pain. That was enough,” he said.

At that moment, his 12-year-old son Jamal held up his arm, hiding underneath a black scarf tied to his neck, serving as a makeshift sling — he had broken his arm running away from settlers in the moments leading up to the community’s violent expulsion on May 24.

“We couldn’t take it anymore. I swear, I promise, if we had support — at least take the women and children to keep them safe — we would have stayed and remained guardians of the land,” Khader said.

“Yesterday was the biggest Nakba we experienced,” Abu Najeh said. “Look at us, we don’t know how to sit, how to eat.”

“In two days, we had to rebuild a home,” Umm Najeh pointed to the cluster of small metal barracks and tents which now served as the community’s temporary home. “Look at this, we were able to at least rebuild these rooms for receiving guests, and here we are with the grace of God, rebuilding still,” she said with a smile that seemed to hold back a flow of tears.

‘The settler is the state, and the state is the settler’

During the first three months of 2023, Israeli settlers in the West Bank escalated their attacks on Palestinian farmers and herders. The Israeli human rights organization, B’tselem, recorded at least 108 different incidents where settlers, often joined by the police or the military, assaulted farmers, uprooted trees, and beat Palestinian civilians and children. As for the year before that, 2022 saw a record high of settler attacks in the West Bank, while between 2010 and 2019, thousands of settler attacks were also recorded. In February of this year, Israeli settlers committed a pogrom in the Palestinian town of Huwwara outside of Nablus, killing a Palestinian man, injuring dozens, terrorizing thousands in an arson rampage, and costing millions of shekels’ worth of property damage.

The displacement of the Bedouins of the Ein Samiya region is a part of this trajectory of rising settler violence, but it is also tied to the evolution of the neighboring settlements of Moaz Esther and Kohav HaShachar.

The Kohav HaShahar settlement, founded in 1980 for 280 Israeli settler families, is situated between the Palestinian towns and villages of Ramon, the final Palestinian town before the Jordan Valley. Currently, over 400 settler families live in the settlement, which advertises itself as a “religious settlement with a community that permeates warmhearted and caring family life.”

On the other hand, the Moaz Esther illegal outpost is marketed as the only “all-girl hilltop” promoting women’s participation in settlement expansion as a duty incumbent upon every Jewish person. The outpost was founded in 2006 in memory of Esther Galia, killed in a drive-by shooting near the settlement of Rimonim at the peak of the Second Intifada when Israeli forces committed crimes against humanity in the West Bank and Gaza.

By February 2020, Israeli authorities and police had dismantled two Israeli settler tents at the illegal outpost of Kohav HaShachar, clashing with settlers and arresting at least one rioter who hurled stones and assaulted police. However, following the Unity Intifada of 2021, when Palestinians engaged in collective mass mobilization from the river to the sea for the first time in decades, Israeli violence from settlers and the army increased. At the time, Benjamin Netanyahu, who was facing corruption charges, gave the green light for joint settler, military, and police violence against Palestinians.

“You need to focus, and please understand,” Khader Ka’abneh tells Mondoweiss. “The settler is the state and the state is the settler. They are one and the same.”

While Israel has attempted to separate the settlers in the West Bank from those in the army, Israeli policymakers represent settler aspirations. Those aspirations have tended to gather steam during periods of heightened Palestinian resistance. In 2018, for instance, then Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel had vowed that “our revenge is settlement and holding tight to the land,” which he said following the stabbing of Israeli settler Adiel Kolman during the peak of Israel’s attempts to solidify control over East Jerusalem.

“I hope we’ll continue to advance construction in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and make a clear decision that between the Jordan [River] and [Mediterannean] Sea there will only be one sovereign state — the State of Israel,” Ariel affirmed alongside Nir Barakat, then Mayor of Jerusalem.

Abu Najeh confirmed that period as one of heightened settler and military theft of land and property. “In the last five years, the police have been bringing settlers who have sheep, and they would come to those herding areas,” Abu Najeh explained.

A lifetime of expulsions

Tender and shy, Umm Najeh laments the lands she has known for over three decades. “That was my home, a dear place to me,” she told Mondoweiss. “I had all my eight children on that land,” she said. “Here we are now, displaced.”

Unlike Umm Najeh, the most recent expulsion, and the string of harassment and theft that preceded it, is not where the story of Abu Najeh begins — he has been forcibly expelled from his land four times ever since 1969.

“Pay attention. Record,” Abu Najeh reiterated as the 81-year-old narrated the trail of dispossession that colored his life. “I was born in the area of Hebron, and grew up in al-Ouja, where I stayed until 1967, when we were given documents to stay there.”

Al-Ouja, an area ten kilometers north of Jericho consisting of the Ouja valley, receives a stream of water originating from Ein Samiya near Ramallah. From there, the Ouja stream flows into the Jordan River. Due to the herding lifestyle of Bedouin communities, natural water sources and their relationship with the wider ecosystem dictates how they select their area of living.

“In September of 1969, [Israeli authorities and forces] gave us 24 hours to gather everything and leave for the Ramallah area,” Abu Najeh said, recalling his first experience of expulsion. That September was when the Ka’abneh community moved to the Mua’rajat area near Ramallah.

Six months later, in March of 1970, the community was forced out of their homes again, marking Abu Najeh’s second experience of expulsion.

“It was raining and [the army] came and began forcing us out. They did it in the rain.” The Israeli army was pushing the family out under the pretext of using the area for military purposes. “[The military] took us almost 3-4 kilometers away in their vehicles,” Abu Najeh recalled.

“They practiced on us, on our homes, so they can drive us out.”

Abu Najeh

Israeli authorities displaced the community to an area 500 meters away from where they began building a new home six months earlier. This pushed them further into Ramallah, but the terror campaign didn’t stop there.

“Four or five military tents came and stayed for three or two months,” Abu Najeh said. “Then they came and started shooting bullets at us and our homes. The bullets would enter the homes and the children would run,” Abu Najeh said. “[The soldiers] left all the empty lands around us and began shooting in our direction,” Abu Najeh said bitterly. “You understand why? So they can expel us, drive us out,” he said.

That was when their third expulsion took place, as the Ka’abneh clan escaped the Mu’arajat under Israeli gunfire and resettled in the Ein Samiya region. Before the fourth and most recent expulsion in May of this year, the community had spent several uninterrupted decades living near Ein Samiya. “Allah kept us safe from them, and so we managed to go to Ein Samiya, where we have been since the 70s,” Abu Najeh said, his tone betraying a nostalgia for the home that he has now known for decades.

During their third expulsion in 1970, the Israeli army had converted their lands in the Mu’arajat region into closed military “firing zones.”

“They practiced on us, on our homes, so they can drive us out,” Abu Najeh said.

This policy of building “firing zones” and “military bases” continues to this day as an instrument of slow ethnic cleansing, sectioning off vast swathes of land for military use and hence justifying land theft based on “national security” needs.

In the Jordan Valley and Dead Sea areas in Jericho, Israeli authorities declared almost half of the region as a “firing zone.” These areas, which have the largest land reserves, constitute almost a third of the West Bank and are home to almost 80,000 Palestinians, 15,000 of whom are Palestinian Bedouins, sprawled across a few dozen community clusters. All of them are slowly being driven toward Ramallah.

“Indirect and direct forcible transfer is currently at the forefront of Israel’s ideological agenda in area C,” a report published by MAAN Development Agency in 2015 reported. “Firing zones, initially established as a means of land control, are now being used to create an environment so hostile that Palestinians are forced to leave the area or live in conditions of deteriorating security,” the report concluded.

The web of experiences tracing four different expulsions allows Abu Najeh to judge the unfolding of the Israeli state’s ethnic cleansing project over the years. “This year is worse than the war of 1967,” he said.

Losing to the ongoing Nakba

The experiences of the Ka’abneh clan have taught them that this recent expulsion will not be their last.

“Tomorrow is darker than today, and the day after will be darker than tomorrow,” Abu Najeh said bitterly around a group of men from his community the day after the expulsion from Ein Samiya.

The community’s skepticism of a less violent future stems from the repeated memories of expulsion and assault by settlers. In the early 1970s, almost as soon as the Ka’abneh clan found some stability in Ein Samiya, Israeli courts began pushing one expulsion order after another. The community has spent year after year fighting them in court.

“Since 1980 we have been fighting through courts against every expulsion order,” Abu Najeh told Mondoweiss. The orders from Israeli authorities for the expulsion of the community began in 1974, according to Abu Najeh.

This year, mirroring the experience of the Ka’abneh clan, other Bedouin communities in the Mu’arajat area were forced to leave their homes in February of this year, also relocating due to the severity of the attacks by Israeli forces and the lack of protection.

As for the Ka’abneh community, their relocation to the village of al-Mughayyir near Ramallah has put them in hostile terrain. Shortly after the clan arrived in the village, Israeli settlers attacked al-Mughayyir and its farmers. At around that same time, Palestinians faced a wave of lethal violence from Israeli settlers and the army in other West Bank towns and villages.

This has only further cemented the conviction that no place is safe from Israeli colonists.

For Palestinians, this is nothing new and is seen as a continuation of what started in 1948. And while Palestinians have witnessed the resurgence of resistance to Israeli colonialism across the West Bank since early 2022, some communities have been unable to withstand the constant harassment and daily indignities of colonial erasure.

“I cannot resist the Israeli state alone,” Khader Ka’abneh told Mondoweiss, reiterating his earlier statement: “The settler is the state. The settler is the government. I can’t fight that alone.”

Ata, the 51-year-old herder, echoed the disappointment, admitting that he can longer fight the settler attacks. “I have been trying these past five years, and I can’t anymore.”

END

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL

ISRAEL/OPT: OVER 300 PALESTINIAN BEDOUIN

FACE FORCED EVICTIONS FOLLOWING MASS

HOME DEMOLITIONS IN NEGEV/NAQAB

9 MAY 2024

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/05/israel-opt-over-300-palestinian-bedouin-face-forced-evictions-following-mass-home-demolitions-in-negev-naqab/

The Israeli authorities’ demolition on 8 May 2024 of 47 homes in Wadi al-Khalil, an unrecognized Palestinian/Bedouin village in the Negev/Naqab, without proper consultation or compensation underscores the urgency to dismantle Israel’s apartheid system, said Amnesty International today.

The demolition orders against the Abu Assa neighbourhood in Wadi al-Khalil were issued by Israeli planning authorities in 2019 to make way for the extension of the route of Highway 6 southwards. The demolitions, the highest in a single day since the demolitions of Al-Araqib in 2010, amount to the forced eviction of over 300 residents of Wadi al-Khalil, one of nine unrecognized villages at risk of forced eviction under the guise of urban development.

“The scenes of hyper-militarized police units, including the notorious Yoav and border police units, storming Wadi al-Khalil to bulldoze homes and confiscate residents’ belongings are yet another chilling demonstration of the cruelty and ongoing injustices and human rights violations meted by Israeli authorities upon Palestinian citizens of Israel, especially those living in the Negev/Naqab,” said Heba Morayef, Amnesty International’s Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa.

“Instead of meaningfully consulting with the local communities in an inclusive decision-making process on planning, infrastructure development and access to land, Israeli authorities, particularly the Bedouin Authority for Development and Settlement, continue to use urban development as a tool to displace Bedouins, disenfranchise them and force them into smaller and smaller pockets of land, in a clear illustration of Israel’s apartheid system. They must immediately stop all forced evictions and ensure those affected have access to effective remedy and those made homeless are granted adequate housing.”

Among the units that participated in the demolition is the police unit Yoav, a unit established in 2011 with the declared aim of “enforcing the law” and halting unauthorized construction in Bedouin localities in the Negev/Naqab.

Jabr Abu Assa, a resident of Wadi al-Khalil whose home was demolished earlier this morning, told Amnesty International:

“We cannot stop this plan; Highway number 6 would pass over our bodies regardless of how hard we resisted, so we asked the authorities for a fair and just alternative, to relocate us to a place where we can live in peace and dignity, to Mtalla neighbourhood in Tall al-Sabe’. However, the only option we were given is to move to a neighbourhood in the nearby village of Um al-Batin, where local residents already said they have no room for us and that we are not welcome; this means pitting us up against them. This means forcing us and them to have to fight over the scarce resources that are barely enough for them.”

On 31 December, the Israeli Supreme Court rejected the appeal of Wadi Al-Khalil’s residents against their forced relocation to Umm al-Batin, allowing the Bedouin Authority for the Development and Settlement of the Negev, a government body that has long served to entrench the domination and oppression of the Bedouin community, to decide where it can relocate the residents.

Hussein al-Rabaya’a, a community activist from the Negev/Naqab, told Amnesty International: “Here you have no choice: they deny you recognition then they decide to displace you, they decide where you can go, and if you protest and ask for a fair alternative, they say it’s not up to you to decide your own fate.”

Another resident of the neighbourhood whose home was destroyed, told the organization: “We don’t know where to go next; we cannot move to Umm al-Batin because we are unwanted there; we’ll do what the residents of al-Araqib did: we’ll set up a tent on the ruins of our bulldozed homes, we have no other choice.

The demolitions in Wadi al-Khalil come less than a year after the Israeli District Court had approved the forced eviction of the unrecognized village of Ras Jrabah, to make way for the expansion of nearby Jewish town of Dimona. The residents of Ras Jrabah remain embroiled in a legal battle against their village’s demolition.

“Israeli authorities must put an end to the systematic discrimination and oppression faced by these communities, including by putting an end to forced evictions and the policy of home demolition. Instead, they should grant villages recognition and repeal all laws, policies and practices designed to dispossess the community – including through planning processes,” said Heba Morayef.

Background

Over the years, Israeli authorities have employed numerous pretexts to push for the displacement and segregation of the Bedouin community in the Negev/Naqab; from expanding highways to building industrial zones, establishing forests for the Jewish National Fund and the designation of military zones.

Amnesty International’s 2022 report on Israel’s apartheid system sets out how discriminatory laws on planning and zoning designed to maximize land and resources for Jewish Israelis at the expense of Palestinians in both Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

END

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH

REPORT

OFF THE MAP

LAND AND HOUSING RIGHTS VIOLATIONS IN

ISRAEL’S UNRECOGNIZED BEDOUIN VILLAGES

30 MARCH 2008

https://www.hrw.org/report/2008/03/30/map/land-and-housing-rights-violations-israels-unrecognized-bedouin-villages

STOP THE WALL

ETHNIC CLEANSING OF BEDOUINS IN JORDAN

VALLEY

https://stopthewall.org/2014/09/30/ethnic-cleansing-bedouins-jordan-valley/

END

[86]

ZIE NOOT 85

[84]

DE ISRAELISCHE NEDERZETTINGEN IN BEZET PALESTIJNS GEBIED/

ILLEGAAL VOLGENS HET INTERNATIONAAL RECHT

ASTRID ESSED

THE SETTLEMENTS

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.

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.

END

BTSELEM.ORG

SETTLER VIOLENCE=STATE VIOLENCE

https://www.btselem.org/settler_violence_updates_list

[80]

WIKIPEDIA

NAKBA

[81]

WIKIPEDIA

1948 ARAB-ISRAELI WAR

[82]

REACTIE ASTRID ESSED OP ZIONISTISCHE POST OVER

DE ZOGENAAMDE ”ISRAELISCHE ONAFHANKELIJKHEIDSOORLOG”

ZIE EERST ZIONIST/REACTIE ASTRID ESSED DAARONDER

[83]

”Sinds 1967 is er sprake van de Israelische bezetting van de Palestijnse gebieden op de Westelijke Jordaanoever, Gaza [14] en Oost-Jeruzalem ondanks Vn Veiligheidsraadsresolutie 242, die Israel in 1947 opriep, zich terug te trekken uit de in de juni oorlog veroverde gebieden, waaronder de bovengenoemde Palestijnse. ”

CIVIS MUNDI

Zweedse fotograaf wint World Press Photo 2012. Misdaden Israëlische politiek in beeld gebracht.

ASTRID ESSED

ZIE VOOR GEHELE TEKST

[79]

• Pappé, Ilan (2024). Lobbying for Zionism on Both Sides of the Atlantic. London: Oneworld Publications. ISBN 9780861544028. See also The Israel Lobby Is Real. This Is How It Works | Aaron Bastani meets Ilan Pappé, Youtube, 2024 Jun 16, and The Israel Lobby with John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt | Outside the Box Podcast, Youtube, 2024 Apr 17.

• The Biggest Prison on Earth: A History of the Occupied Territories. London: Oneworld Publications. 2017. ISBN 978-1-85168-587-5. Archived from the original on 14 October 2023.
• Ten Myths About Israel. New York: Verso. 2017. ISBN 9781786630193
• (with Noam Chomsky) On Palestine. Chicago: Haymarket Books. 2015. ISBN 978-1-60846-470-8.
• The Idea of Israel: A History of Power and Knowledge. New York: Verso. 2014.
• “The Boycott Will Work: An Israeli Perspective” in Audrea Lim (ed.) The Case for Sanctions Against Israel. London & Brooklyn, NY: Verso. 2012.
• The Forgotten Palestinians: A History of the Palestinians in Israel. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. 2011.
• (with Noam Chomsky) Gaza in Crisis: Reflections on Israel’s War Against the Palestinians (Hamish Hamilton, 2010). ISBN 978-0-241-14506-7
• Out of the Frame: The Struggle for Academic Freedom in Israel. London: Pluto Press. 2010.
• The Rise and Fall of a Palestinian Dynasty: The Husaynis, 1700–1948. London: Saqi Books. 2010.
• The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (London and New York: Oneworld, 2006). ISBN 1-85168-467-0
• The Modern Middle East (London and New York: Routledge, 2005). ISBN 0-415-21409-2
• A History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples (Cambridge University Press, 2004), ISBN 0-521-55632-5
• (With Jamil Hilal). Parlare Con il Nemico, Narrazioni palestinesi e israeliane a confronto (Milano: Bollati Boringhieri, 2004).
• The Aristocracy: The Husaynis; A Political Biography (Jerusalem: Mossad Byalik, (Hebrew), 2003).
• The Israel-Palestine Question (London and New York: Routledge, 1999; 2006). ISBN 0-415-16948-8
• (with M. Maoz). History From Within: Politics and Ideas in Middle East (London and New York: Tauris, 1997). ISBN 1-86064-012-5
• (with J. Nevo). Jordan in the Middle East: The Making of a Pivotal State (London: Frank Cass, 1994). ISBN 0-7146-3454-9
• The Making of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1947–1951 (London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 1992; 1994). ISBN 1-85043-819-6
• Britain and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1948–1951 (London: St. Antony’s College Series, Macmillan Press; New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1988). ISBN 0-312-01573-9

• “What drives Israel?”, Essay of the week, Herald Scotland (6 June 2010). Archived from the original on 25 Jan 2013.
• “Towards a Geography of Peace: Whither Gaza?”, The Electronic Intifada (18 June 2007).
• “Calling a Spade a Spade: The 1948 Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine” Archived 5 June 2016 at the Wayback Machine, article in al-Majdal Magazine (Spring 2006). [retrieved 17 May 2007].
• “Back the boycott,” The Guardian, (24 May 2005).
• “Haj Amin and the Buraq Revolt”, Jerusalem Quarterly, Issue 18 (June 2003). Archived from the original on 3 May 2013.
• “The ’48 Nakba & The Zionist Quest for its Completion” Archived 8 February 2019 at the Wayback Machine, Between The Lines (October 2002). [retrieved 23 February 2012].
• “The Husayni Family Faces New Challenges: Tanzimat, Young Turks, the Europeans and Zionism 1840–1922, Part II”, Jerusalem Quarterly, Issue 11–12 (Winter-Spring 2001). [retrieved 23 February 2012]
• Ilan Pappé, “The Tantura Case in Israel: The Katz Research and Trial,” Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 30, No. 3 (Spring 2001), pp. 19–39. [retrieved 23 February 2012].
• Ilan Pappé, “The Rise and Fall of the Husainis (Part 1),” Jerusalem Quarterly, Issue 10 (Autumn 2000).
• Ilan Pappé, “Review Essay, Israeli Television’s Fiftieth Anniversary “Tekumma” Series: A Post-Zionist View?,” Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 27, No. 4 (Summer 1998), pp. 99–105, Institute for Palestinian Studies.
• Ilan Pappé, Destruction of al-Aqsa is no conspiracy theory, The Electronic Intifada, 10 November 2015.”

DOELBEWUST VERDREVEN

Terwijl Israël de gebeurtenissen van mei 1948 al 75 jaar met grote vreugde viert, herdenken Palestijnen deze gebeurtenissen jaarlijks met grote droefheid. Zij gedenken wat toen gebeurde als een ramp: de Nakba, Arabisch voor de catastrofe. Minstens 750.000 mensen werden uit hun huizen, steden en dorpen verdreven of sloegen op de vlucht uit wat vandaag de staat Israël is. Naar schatting 450 dorpen werden vernietigd. De Palestijnse wijken in de grote gemengde steden werden etnisch gezuiverd. De beschaving die honderden jaren in Palestina had bestaan, werd grotendeels en brutaal vernietigd. De gruwel en het trauma dragen deze mensen en hun nakomelingen tot op vandaag mee.

SAMPOL.BE

https://www.sampol.be/2023/05/75-jaar-nakba-israel-is-gebouwd-op-een-groot-onrecht

ZIE VOOR GEHELE TEKST, NOOT 68

[78]

”

”n favour (33 countries, 72% of total votes)

•  Bolivia
•  Brazil
•  Costa Rica
•  Dominican Republic
•  Ecuador
•  Guatemala
•  Haiti
•  Nicaragua
•  Panama
•  Paraguay
•  Peru
•  Uruguay
•  Venezuela

•  Belgium
•  Denmark
•  France
•  Iceland
•  Luxembourg
•  Netherlands
•  Norway
•  Sweden

•  Byelorussian SSR
•  Czechoslovakia
•  Poland
•  Ukrainian SSR
•  Soviet Union

Against (13 countries, 28% of total votes)

•  Afghanistan
•  India
•  Iran
•  Iraq
•  Lebanon
•  Pakistan
•  Saudi Arabia
•  Syria
•  Yemen

Abstentions (10 countries)

•  Argentina
•  Chile
•  Colombia
•  El Salvador
•  Honduras
•  Mexico

Absent (1 country)

ORIGINELE BRON

WIKIPEDIA

UNITED NATIONS PARTITION PLAN FOR PALESTINE