FIDH calls upon you to invoke these situations during your political dialogue with the Israeli authorities on March 5th, and call for Israel to conform with its international obligations. We further reiterate our call to the EU to review the mechanism of humanitarian aid aimed at the Palestinian population, following the World Bank propositions, in order to enable the payement of salaries to the Palestinian public servants, notably in the education and health care departments.
I.Violations of human rights by Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT)
Refusal by Israel to accept the mission mandated by the UN Human Rights Council to investigate into the human rights violations perpetrated in Beit Hanoun.
Strong restrictions on the freedom of the movement and tightened siege on the OPT.
The Israeli Army has continued to impose a tightened siege on the OPT and imposed severe restrictions on the movement of Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem. Rafah International Crossing Point has remained under closure since 25 June 2006, even though it has been opened for few hours during the last few weeks. On Friday, 16 February 2007, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) opened the new Erez International Crossing Point under new procedures. Yet, according to Palestinians who traveled through the new crossing point, the Army imposes the same restrictions on their movement as in the past.
FIDH recalls that the closure of the border crossings amount to a form of collective punishment against the civilian Palestinian population, in violation of international humanitarian law. It further constitutes a violation of the right to freedom of movement as enshrined in the UDHR and the ICCPR.
Construction of the annexation wall
The construction of the wall, has been accompanied by the creation of a new administrative regime, the “permit regime”, regulated in a series of orders issued by the Israeli Military Command in the Occupied West Bank, turning the lives of Palestinians living near the wall and those who make a living from farming, into a bureaucratic nightmare. The construction of the Wall inside the West Bank has continued since the last session of the Human Rights Council.
Around Occupied East-Jerusalem, the length of the wall will be 180km, out of which 5km only will follow the Green Line. The construction of the wall multiplies the surface of East-Jerusalem by 2.3 by including big new settlements together with their development zones.
The construction of the wall has been outlawed and condemned by the International Court of Justice. Furthermore, the construction leads to the destruction of large amount of property and is in violation the right to property as enshrined in article 17 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in customary international law. Israel is also depriving the Palestinians from enjoying their most basic rights granted by the ICESCR.
Settlement Activities
The settlement activities have continued and worsened all over the West Bank and in East Jerusalem, since the Israeli disengagement from the Gaza Strip.
Israeli settlers living in the West Bank continued their systematic attacks on Palestinian civilians and property. The Israeli army also continued to destroy civilian property for the purpose of settlement expansion.
As an example, over a period of 7 days, between 15 and 21 February 2007, the IDF demolished 12 houses and a number of animal farms, claiming that they were built without licenses. IDF also demolished a house in Qutna village, northwest of Jerusalem, for the same reason. Additionally, IDF confiscated 21 donums of land in Tulkarm, and 665 square meters in Beit Ummar village, north of Hebron. Israeli settlers launched 5 attacks on Palestinian civilians, which injured 3 Palestinian civilians (two children and an old man).
On 28 February 2007, Israeli governing bodies unveiled a preliminary plan to build a new settlement of 11000 units near the East-Jerusalem’s Airport, that would be connected to another settlement in Beit El area by a tunnel. If approved, it would be the largest Israeli settlement project in East Jerusalem since 1967.
FIDH recalls that the establishment of settlements violates international humanitarian law. Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits the occupying power to transfer citizens from its own territory to the occupied territory (Article 49). The Hague Regulations prohibits the occupying power to undertake permanent changes in the occupied area, unless these are due to military needs in the narrow sense of the term, or unless they are undertaken for the benefit of the local population.
Serious violations of economic and social rights
As previously stated by FIDH, following its mission in the OPT between 25 June and 2 July 2006. poverty and unemployment have risen in dramatic proportions in the Gaza strip and in the West Bank. According to the World Bank’s previsions in March 2003, it was estimated that by the end of 2006, the average personal income would decrease by 30 percent in real terms, that unemployment would increase to 40 percent (from 23 percent in December 2005) ; and that poverty levels would climb from 44 percent to 67 percent. The financing plan proposed by the European Union and adopted by the Quartet is a step forward in the humanitarian support to the Palestinian population.
Unfortunately, it does not guarantee the payment of salaries to the Palestinian civil servants, notably in the education and health care departments. The interim funding mechanism proposed by the World Bank on May 7, 2006 would have enabled the payment of these salaries.
Deplorably, the Quartet did not choose to provide so. Consequently, the salaries of the civil servants of the PA have not been paid since March 2006. The Palestinian Authority has 152,000 civil servants, an average of 6 persons depend on each one of those civil servants. Thus, over 900,000 persons, almost one quarter of the total population of the OPTs, are affected by the nonpayment of salaries to the civil servants in the OPTs, and are currently essentially without any financial resources.
The recent transfer of Tax payment by Israel has not adequately benefited the Palestinian population that remains in an extreme dire financial situation. Furthermore, the EU needs to urgently reconsider its position regarding the financing of Palestinian civil servants’ salaries.
II.Violations of human rights in Israel through discriminatory policies and practices
Racial discrimination against the Arab Bedouin Population of the Negev1.
The government severely discriminates against the indigenous Negev Bedouin population by failing to recognize their villages and historical territorial rights, and denying them the rights to pursue the traditional Arab-Bedouin way of life and access basic and essential services. The government employs discriminatory planning policies to dispossess the Bedouin of their traditional lands and enable Jewish citizens to settle there instead. Israel actively encourages Jewish citizens to move to the Negev region, with a wide variety of government incentives, while simultaneous pressuring the Negev Bedouin citizens to move to government-planned town which completely disregard their needs, cultural, and traditional way of life.
The discriminatory policies includes the exclusion of their villages from the district outline plan, making it impossible for the Bedouin residents to obtain building permits and to build legally. Nonetheless, the government continues to vigorously enforce the policy of house demolitions against so-called illegal construction.
Furthermore, the Bedouin residents of the unrecognised villages are denied basic and essential services such as water, electricity, sewage systems, transport, education and health.
Discriminatory laws and State practices against Arab citizen
Arab citizens of Israel face harsh institutionalised discrimination. Several laws, policies and practices, such as the law on land and housing, the granting of military services benefits, the law banning family unification with Palestinian from the OPT, the unequal state funding of Arab towns and villages and the lack of participation of Arab citizen in the planning process, the limitation access to education for Arab students illustrate this discriminatory policy.
Furthermore, FIDH denounces since 2003 the “Nationality and entry into Israel Law (Temporary order) 5763-2003. While Israeli citizens are granted the right to family reunification with their foreign spouse, this law denies this same right to Israeli citizens married to Palestinian residents in the OPT. Despite the calls to revoke the ban by several UN treaty bodies (UN Human Rights Committee, UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Agaisnt Women), as well as by several human rights organizations, the High Court of Israel, on 14th May 2006 dismissed the petition presented by Adalah and ACRI calling for the annulment of the Nationality Law and in particular of its discriminatory provisions.
The law affects the lives of thousands of couples, who are forced to live separately. Indeed, couples who are denied family reunification under this law, can neither live together in Israel, nor move together to the Palestinian Territories, as the spouse holding Israeli identity card would violate the military commander’s order prohibiting Israelis to enter areas under Palestinian security control
Hoping that you will usefully raise these preoccupations with the Israeli authorities on the occasion of the Association Council, I remain at your disposal for any further information.
Yours, Sincerely,
Sidiki KABA,
President