human rights |

Oct 2

Israel has normalised torture of Palestinian prisoners

Last week, a Palestinian detainee arrested by Israeli occupation forces was admitted to a Jerusalem hospital suffering from severe injuries, including broken ribs and kidney failure.

Samir Arbeed, 44 and in good health when detained, had been tortured during his interrogation at the hands of Shin Bet agents. According to reports, the agents had been given permission by an Israeli “judicial body” to use “exceptional ways to investigate”. Read more

May 9

UK silence on Israel’s detention of Palestinian children

In 2012, a report by a UK government-sponsored delegation of lawyers to Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories found Israel’s treatment of Palestinian children in military detention to be in breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Six years on, however, and Israel has made only modest changes; according to government minister Alistair Burt, speaking in the Houses of Parliament earlier this year, Israel has implemented just one of 43 specific recommendations made by the lawyers. Read more

Apr 6

Pre-meditated murder in Gaza

A week on from Israel’s deadly crackdown on Palestinian protests in the occupied Gaza Strip on Land Day it is clear that the killing of demonstrators constituted a case of pre-meditated murder. The evidence is overwhelming and almost entirely provided by Israeli officials themselves.

First, consider the Israeli authorities’ preparations and open threats in the lead up to Friday, 30 March. Two days in advance, the head of the Israeli armed forces proudly told local media that there would be more than 100 snipers positioned around the Gaza Strip, mostly from “special units,” who would be authorised to live fire on Palestinian demonstrators. Read more

Feb 6

Making money from Israel’s settlements: UN report deals a blow to the occupation business

Last week, the United Nations human rights office published an update on its work to produce a database of businesses involved in Israel’s illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, as mandated by a UN Human Rights Council resolution adopted in March 2016.

The report revealed that 206 companies, mostly Israeli or American, had been identified as engaged in activities that are either explicitly linked to the settlements or form part of processes that “enable and support the establishment, expansion and maintenance of [the settlements]”. Read more

Dec 24

Time for international community to get tough on Israel

2017 must be the year that the international community finally toughens up its language and, most importantly, its actions, when it comes to Israel.

The case is well known and irrefutable. Israel is a serial human rights violator whose laws and policies contravene UN Security Council resolutions in addition to various other international humanitarian-law obligations and treaties. Read more

Jul 10

‘Just a few more apartments’: Netanyahu dismisses concerns over Israeli settlements

Benjamin Netanyahu is a busy man; he certainly doesn’t have time to deal seriously with international objections – even from allies – to petty topics such as settlement expansion.

That was the impression Israel’s prime minister gave on Wednesday, when he dismissed US concerns about the recent approval of 800 new housing units in settlements. “A few more apartments near the municipality of Ma’ale Adumim” are not “preventing peace”, Netanyahu said.

This was classic Bibi disingenuousness. Read more

Jun 9

Ban Ki-moon buckles – and Palestinian children will pay the price

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has overruled his colleagues’ recommendations and removed Israel from a list of parties guilty of grave violations of children’s rights, it was revealed Monday.

The decision to exclude Israel from the list, part of the Secretary-General’s annual report on children and armed conflict presented to the Security Council, was slammed by human rights groups, who accused Ban Ki-moon of buckling under pressure from Israel and the US. Read more

May 3

When law is the target: Israel’s campaign will whitewash war crimes everywhere

In 2011, and in response to accusations of war crimes during the final months of conflict with the Tamil Tigers two years previously, the Sri Lankan government convened a conference where then-Minister of External Affairs G. L. Peiris declared that “the entire body of international law must be revisited.” Human Rights Watch called the event “a public relations exercise to whitewash abuses.”

This week, a new conference will take place in Israel on a familiar-sounding theme: “Towards a New Law of War.” According to conference organisers Shurat HaDin, the goal of the event “is to influence the direction of legal discourse concerning issues critical to Israel and her ability to defend herself.” Read more

Apr 8

We need to talk about Israel’s ‘right to exist’

There was outrage last week when the University of Southampton cancelled a forthcoming conference on Israel and international law, ostensibly on the grounds of “health and safety”.

The university had been under pressure from pro-Israel advocacy groups, and organisers have begun legal efforts against what they see as a concession to outside interference and bullying. The story of the campaign to shut down the conference should not, however, distract from why Israel’s supporters found the topics scheduled for discussion so objectionable. Read more

Nov 22

One arrest will not alter Israel’s culture of impunity for violence

On the morning of March 19 this year, there were no television crews around to capture the moment when an Israeli soldier pulled the trigger and fatally wounded 14-year-old Yusef Al Shawamreh. There were no photographers on hand nor CCTV cameras rolling as Israeli forces, lying in ambush along the path of the apartheid wall, opened fire on children out to pick plants.

Killed while trying to reach his own family’s farmland, Yusef was shot without warning from a few dozen metres away. There was no “threat”, not even a demonstration: just three friends out to find gundelia, cut down by the soldiers of an occupying army. Read more