Israel’s March-April Military Campaign in the 1967 Occupied
Palestinian Territories and the Destruction of the Oslo Framework
BADIL Resource Center
for Palestinian Residency & Refugee Rights
Bethlehem, Palestine
International
law and UN resolutions provide an objective framework for the resolution of political
conflict, in general, and specifically as a framework for durable solutions for
refugees and other displaced persons. While the implementation of international
law and UN resolutions cannot, in itself, guarantee a durable solution, a
solution reached outside the framework of international law and UN resolutions
will neither be just, durable or binding.
The United
Nations and its individual member states together share responsibility for the
protection of the fundamental human rights and respect for humanitarian norms
as set forth in international law. The mandate emanates from the 1945 Charter
of the United Nations, Article 1(1), which establishes the purpose of the
UN as being:
to maintain international peace and security, and to that
end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of
threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other
breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity
with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement
of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the
peace.
International
law and UN resolutions – i.e., UNGA 194(1948), UNSC 237(1967), 242(1967) and
338(1967) – provide the foundation for a comprehensive, just and durable
solution to the historic conflict in the Middle East. The political process,
security measures and all agreements between the parties to the conflict must
protect the fundamental human rights of all persons and respect humanitarian
norms as set forth in international law.
The
collapse of the political process between Israel and the PLO is related, in
large part, to the chronic lack of international protection of fundamental
human rights and lack of respect for humanitarian norms since the inception of
the Madrid/Oslo process nearly a decade ago characterized by: ongoing land
confiscation, settlement construction, house demolition, exploitation of
natural resources, internal and external military closure, denial of residency
rights, denial of the right to self-determination, and rejection of the right
of return. Unlike most peace agreements, including those signed between Israel
and its neighbors Egypt and Jordan, the ‘Oslo Accords’ stipulate that relations
between Israel and the Palestinians will be conducted on the basis of an agreed
upon political process rather than international law and the Charter of the
United Nations.
Reporting
on status of human rights in the 1967 occupied Palestinian territories several
weeks after the onset of Israel’s military campaign to crush the popular
Palestinian uprising (al-Aqsa intifada), the UN Special Rapporteur on
Human Rights in the occupied territories wrote:
In
general, respondents identified one of the main causes of the recent
Palestinian protests as accumulated frustration at the perceived shortcomings
of the Oslo process, both as to content and implementation, and notably its
failure to uphold human rights and humanitarian norms. Both the local
Palestinian and Israeli interlocutors consulted emphasized to the Special
Rapporteur that none of the concerned parties could possibly not be cognizant
of the danger inherent in this failure: the people in the street, Israeli
intelligence, the Commission on Human Rights, the various treaty bodies, the
General Assembly, the Special Rapporteur, the Palestinian Authority. They
lamented that, in spite of that, no corrective action had been taken. Moreover,
they uniformly deplored the double standard that has applied to the occupied
Palestinian territories of tolerating or facilitating the Israeli occupation
authorities’ unbroken pattern of violations. In particular, they point out the
contradiction between the standards established by the United Nations and the
simultaneous ineffectiveness of the United Nations in upholding its own
principles. [Emphasis added]
UN Doc. E/CN.4/S-5/3, 17 October 2000
More than
18 months after the beginning of Israel’s military campaign to crush all forms
of popular Palestinian resistance to Israel’s illegal military occupation,
denial of the right to self-determination and rejection of the basic human
rights of Palestinian refugees (i.e., right of return, real property
restitution, and compensation for losses and damages), US-led international
efforts to find a formula that will bring an end to the ‘cycle of violence’ and
facilitate a return to political negotiations (“Mitchell-Tenet-Zinni process”)
have failed. The Mitchell fact-finding committee recommendations and the Tenet
cease-fire plan did not include a single reference to international law and the
protection of fundamental human rights and humanitarian norms.
An
increasing number of international expert teams, as well as western and Arab
diplomats have begun to suggest that the unsuccessful “bottom-up” approach
leading from a cease-fire through confidence building to bilateral negotiations
should be abandoned and replaced by a new and internationally backed “top-down”
approach. The latter is a new formula which, based on the conclusion that the
two parties are unable to resolve the conflict bilaterally, calls upon the
international community to lay out a comprehensive peace plan (along the lines
of the Saudi proposal), and to impose it on the parties by means of upgraded
international involvement, including the possibility of some form of
international monitoring/peace keeping force. This new formula currently under
debate has yet to demonstrate a serious commitment to international law and
relevant UN resolutions.
While the search for a new peace formula continues, the chronic lack of
international protection for fundamental human rights and lack of respect for
humanitarian norms has assumed appalling proportions, particularly for the
Palestinian people, including refugees, residing in the 1967 occupied
Palestinian territories. More than 1,400 Palestinians have been killed, most of
whom are civilians. More than 300 Israelis have been killed, more than half of
whom are civilians. Israel’s military campaign to crush the al-Aqsa intifada
has completely disregarded the protected status of the entire Palestinian
civilian population. Damage and destruction of private property and public
infrastructure is widespread. Humanitarian operations, including emergency
medical assistance and delivery of basic food supplies, have been severely
obstructed. The steep rise in unemployment and the number of persons living
below the poverty line in the occupied territories is unparalleled.
The durability of any future political process will depend upon the
ability of the international community to bring an end to the massive and
systematic violation of fundamental human rights and humanitarian norms in the
1967 occupied territories, ensure that all agreements are fully consistent with
international law and UN resolutions, and institute mechanisms to guarantee the
protection of fundamental human rights and respect for humanitarian norms. The
first part of this report provides a brief overview of Israel’s massive and
systematic violation of international law in the occupied Palestinian
territories in April 2002. The second part of the reports provides a series of
recommendations – i.e., an ‘Agenda for Action’ for a comprehensive, just and
durable solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
.
Since the onset of Israel’s military campaign to crush popular
Palestinian resistance to Israel’s illegal military occupation, denial of the
right to self-determination and rejection of the basic human rights of
Palestinian refugees, the pervasive lack of respect for fundamental human
rights and lack of respect for humanitarian norms has assumed appalling
proportions in the 1967 occupied Palestinian territories. More than 1,400
Palestinians have been killed and tens of thousands have been injured
(Palestinian Red Crescent Society, PRCS). Thousands of homes have been either
destroyed or severely damaged. Public infrastructure, including health and
education institutions, electricity and water supplies and roads, have been
ravaged. Unemployment has doubled and more than 50 percent of the population is
living below the poverty line. Refugees, who comprise 50 percent of the
population of the occupied territories, women and children have been particular
vulnerable to the impact of Israel’s military campaign (See BADIL Bulletin
No. 8, “A Climate of Vulnerability – International Protection, Palestinian
Refugees and the al-Aqsa Intifada, One Year Later, September 2001).
Despite recommendations issued by
all major UN human rights bodies – i.e., UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
(UN Doc. E/CN.4/2001/114, 29 November 2000), UN Commission on Human Rights (UN
Doc. E/CN.4/2002/121, March 2001),
Special Rapporteur on Human Rights
in the Occupied Territories (UN Doc. E/CN.5/S-5/3, 17 October 2000 and
E/CN.4/2002/32, 6 March 2002), and the Committee on Economic, Social and
Cultural Rights – and despite repeated calls by the international community for
Israel to comply with obligations set forth in the Fourth Geneva Convention
of 1949 and human rights instruments – including the 1948 Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, the two international covenants, commonly
referred to as the 1966 "International Bill of Rights", among others
– Israel continues to disregard international law.
The purpose of the principal international instrument
concerned with the protection of civilians under military occupation, the
Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, is to ensure respect for the human rights of
protected persons. This is made clear by article 27 of the Convention, which
provides that the Occupying Power is to respect the fundamental rights of
protected persons. According to the Commentary of the International Committee
of the Red Cross on this provision: “The right to respect for the person must
be understood in its widest sense: it covers all the rights of the individual,
that is, the rights and qualities which are inseparable from the human being by
the very fact of his existence and his mental and physical powers; it includes,
in particular, the right to physical, moral and intellectual integrity – an
essential attribute of the human person” (p. 201). The “rights of the
individual” have been proclaimed, described and interpreted in international
human rights instruments, particularly the international covenants on civil and
political rights, and economic, social and cultural rights of 1966, and in the
jurisprudence of their monitoring bodies. These human rights instruments
therefore complement the Fourth Geneva Convention by defining and giving
content to the rights protected in article 27. This is borne out by repeated
resolutions of the General Assembly (for example, resolution 2675 (XXV)) and by
the Vienna Declaration adopted by the World Conference on Human Rights in 1993,
which declared that:
“Effective international measures to
guarantee and monitor the implementation of human rights standards should be
taken in respect of people under foreign occupation, and effective legal
protection against the violation of their human rights should be provided, in
accordance with human rights norms and international law, particularly the
Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of
War, of 14 August 1949, and other applicable norms of humanitarian law.”
Violations include: the right to
life, right to an adequate standard of living, right to adequate housing, right
to education, right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental
health, torture, and freedom of movement. These violations affect, in varying
degrees, nearly the entire Palestinian population of the 1967 occupied
Palestinian territories and amount to a systematic policy of collective
punishment.
Israel’s pervasive lack of respect for fundamental human rights and
humanitarian norms is joined by a chronic lack of international protection for
these basic rights and norms. Despite repeated recommendations by all major UN
human rights bodies and international and local human rights organizations for
the deployment of international forces in the 1967 occupied Palestinian
territories to protect fundamental human rights and ensure respect for
humanitarian norms, the international community has failed to deploy or even
study the option for the deployment of international forces. The United States,
in particular, has repeatedly obstructed the deployment of international forces
through lobbying members of the UN Security Council to vote against or abstain
from draft Security Council resolutions calling for the establishment of an
international protection force (S/2000/1171, 18 December 2000) and, when unable
to convince or pressure members, the United States has repeatedly used its veto
to block initiatives (S/2001/270, 26 March 2001, S/2001/1199, 14 December 2001)
by other member states.
The pervasive disregard for international humanitarian and human rights
law reached a dramatic peak in March and April 2002 in the context of two
massive military assaults (Operations “The Colors Journey” and “Defensive Wall”)
launched by Israel to crush the al-Aqsa intifada. In the six weeks
between March and mid-April 2002 Israeli military forces have killed more than
400 Palestinians comprising 30 percent of the total number of Palestinians
killed by Israeli military forces and settlers since the beginning of the al-Aqsa
intifada in September 2000. Israel’s violations of international
humanitarian and human rights law include war crimes and crimes against
humanity as defined by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court
(UN Doc. A/Conf.183/9, 1998). The UN Commission on Human Rights has considered
Israel's continued "grave breaches" of the 1949 Fourth Geneva
Convention as rising to the level of war crimes since 1972 and recently
reaffirmed this view during a Special Session of the Commission in October
2000.
War crimes committed during Israel’s military assaults in March and
April 2002 include:
Crimes against humanity may include:
It won’t be possible to reach an
agreement with [the Palestinians] before the Palestinians are hit hard. Now
they have to be hit. If they aren’t badly beaten, there won’t be any negotiations.
Only after they are beaten will we be able to conduct talks.
Ha’aretz, 5
March 2002
As the UN Special Rapporteur for
Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, John Dugard, noted in his recent
report to the UN Commission on Human Rights,
It
is against this background that it is necessary to reiterate that it is the
military occupation of the Palestinian Territory that is responsible for most
of the violations of humanitarian law and human rights … Similarly it is
necessary to recall the applicability of the Fourth Geneva Convention as the
governing law. On 5 December 2001, the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth
Geneva Convention reaffirmed the applicability of this Convention to the
Occupied Palestinian Territory, reiterated the need for full respect for the
provision of the Convention and recalled the obligations under the Convention
of the parties to the conflict and of the State of Israel as the Occupying
Power.
UN Doc. E/CN.4/2002/32, 6 March 2002
The following subsections provide an
overview of Israel’s violations of fundamental human rights and humanitarian
norms during Operation “Defensive Wall” in April 2002.
Attacks on
Civilian Population (“Protected Persons”)
International and local humanitarian agencies have
been unable to establish the total number of dead and injured since Israel’s
latest military assault on Palestinian cities, villages and refugee camps began
in late March 2002 due to the lack of humanitarian access (See below).
According to the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS), the number of confirmed
deaths during the first two weeks (as of 13 April) reached nearly 150. The
impact of Israel’s military campaign on human security is even more chilling if
one includes the total number of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces during
both recent military operations – “The Colors Journey” and “Defensive Wall” –
in March and April 2002. Nearly 400 Palestinians were killed (PRCS) comprising
almost 30 percent of the number killed (1,412, PRCS) over the last 18 months.
The majority of Palestinians killed and injured by
Israeli military forces are civilians. While the large majority of deaths
during the first months of the al-Aqsa intifada occurred during
demonstrations between Israeli forces and mostly unarmed Palestinian
protestors, civilian deaths, particularly during Israel’s recent military
assaults in March and April 2002, are increasingly the result of the use of
heavy machinegun fire, tank rounds, missiles, and aerial bombardment from F-16
fighter jets in civilian areas.
At
around 10 am on Friday [5 April], twenty Israeli tanks entered Tubas from its
eastern side and indiscriminately shelled city quarters. As a result,
13-year-old Dima Sawafta was killed by a gunshot in the chest while at home,
ten others were variously injured. Ambulances could not reach them due to heavy
gunfire. Also in Tubas, Iyad Abed Sawafta (22), a farmer, who was working on
his land, was killed. An Israeli soldier shot him, east of Tubas. Two live
bullets entered his head and chest at 1 o'clock this afternoon.
LAW Press Release, 5 April 2002
On
the morning of April 10 at 5:15 am, two residents of Dura, Hebron District,
33-year-old Aref Mahmud Sayid Ahmad and 32-year-old Na'if Salem Sayid Ahmad
were on their way home from morning prayers at a mosque in the town. When they were
ten metres away from Aref Ahmad's house, a missile was shot from a helicopter
which killed both men. The explosion caused a fire in Aref Ahmad's home. His
wife and eight-year-old daughter sustained head injuries from the shrapnel.
Faruq, Na'if Ahmad's brother, sustained a serious leg injury. Due to the curfew
imposed on the city, it was impossible to send an ambulance to evacuate the
injured and the bodies of the deceased. They are still in Na'if Ahmad's house.
B'Tselem, cited in Christian Aid Press Release, 11 April 2002
During March and April 2002, Palestinian refugees
residing in camps in the 1967 occupied territories have been particularly
vulnerable to Israeli military attacks. Damages to refugee shelters caused by
indiscriminate Israeli shelling are especially large in the densely built-up
refugee camps, where makeshift constructions are less resistant to attacks by
heavy Israeli ammunition and missiles, and shock and anxiety attacks,
especially among the children and elderly, spread among the whole crowded camp
population. It is estimated that Israeli forces killed at least refugees in
Jenin refugee camp alone; humanitarian personnel are unable to confirm the
total number of dead until Israel permits full access to the camp.
The
Israeli Defence Force has made a hellish battleground among the civilians in
the Balata and Jenin refugee camps. We are getting reports of pure horror --
that helicopters are strafing civilian residential areas; that systematic shelling
by tanks has created hundreds of wounded; that bulldozers are razing refugee
homes to the ground and that food and medicine will soon run out. In the name
of human decency the Israeli military must allow our ambulances safe passage to
help evacuate the wounded and deliver emergency supplies of medicines and food.
Peter Hansen, UNRWA Commissioner General, 7 April 2002
Israel’s recent military assault on Palestinian cities, villages and
refugee camps has resulted in widespread shortages of food and water. Two weeks
into Israel’s military campaign, for example, the Palestinian Red Crescent
Society (PRCS) reported that it was struggling to cope with the flood of
requests for emergency food aid in the West Bank city of Ramallah where the
number of calls increased three-fold. The situation was similar across the West
Bank with the civilian population confined to their homes under tight curfew
and shop owners unable to bring in fresh produce, dairy products and household
goods. Food shortages have been aggravated by a general lack of cash, the lack
of humanitarian access to bring in necessary food stocks, and looting of food
stocks from stores and private homes by Israeli soldiers.
We had nothing to eat or drink and one my sisters
fainted from hunger. We could smell a fire in the house next to us but had
nowhere to go. Snipers were hiding outside and the helicopter was drawing
closer.
Hanan, age 23, Jenin refugee camp, Agence-France
Presse, 11 April 2002
I live close to Max
Supermarket. I saw all that happened. The tank came and broke the front door,
and then they closed the other door, went in, and broke another door. Then they
exploded the safe, obviously to steal the money inside, this is the proof that
they were after money. Computers and offices all went in the process. Also the
special store for special foods was destroyed. The safe did not open though, a
small hole only. We heard everything. Our neighbors said that they had
two APC's full of soldiers with them, and they began to load in food
items. They took them away and came back and filled up again with food and
left. Later, we went and saw how it was, the destruction and the loss of food
items. Two APC's were loaded with food.
Large
parts of the civilian population have been without electricity, often for days
on end, due to damage to the power grid. Engineering crews have been unable to
cope with the massive destruction, unable to operate due to round-the-clock
curfews, or forced to suspend repair work due to shooting from Israeli forces.
By 3 April 2002, some 5 days into Israel’s military assault, for example, the
Palestine Red Crescent was reporting that half of Ramallah was still without
electricity. Disruptions to the removal of garbage, which has piled up in the
streets along with severe restrictions on the movement of humanitarian
personnel who have been unable to remove the dead from public places have
further exacerbated the threat to basic public health. In many cities, dead
bodies were allowed to remain in the street and in homes for days before the
Red Cross or Red Crescent were allowed to remove the bodies.
I think it is particularly appalling that religious
observance in connection with death and burial have been so grossly violated.
And I do appeal to everybody to respect the basic religious (inaudible),
something that the Israeli population of Judaic tradition can understand very
well. I hope that it can be respected, but the incidences of mass graves, of
people dying in houses, bleeding to death, and then being impossible to remove
them. I spoke to a family in a camp recently where they had to make the burial
in their own little courtyard within their shelter. These are conditions which
remind me of the worst days in Angola where people in besieged cities had to
bury their dead in the small piece of land still available.
Peter Hansen, UNRWA Commissioner General, UN Dept. of
Public Information (DPI), 5 April 2002
The threat to the health care system and the complete closure of schools
has hit women and children particularly hard. One week into Israel’s military
assault the UN Population Fund warned of a rise in maternal and infant deaths
due to the inability of women to reach health facilities.
Emergency obstetric care, such as surgical delivery,
is inaccessible to most women in the occupied Palestinian territory and delays
at checkpoints of women in labour have resulted in unattended roadside births
and even deaths of some women and infants. Even before the recent escalation,
one fifth of pregnant women in Gaza and the West Bank could not receive
prenatal care because of the difficulty of travelling through checkpoints to
health facilities. This access to obstetric care has become even more limited
over the past week as a result of the reoccupation of major cities, such as
Ramallah, Nablus and Bethlehem, and the imposition of a policy of closure and
prolonged curfews on their populations. This situation leaves pregnant women
without access to live-saving medical assistance. A programme initiated six
months ago to train midwives and nurses from some villages in the West Bank and
Gaza to provide emergency obstetric care in urgent situations is now inadequate
as the crisis escalates.
UN Population Fund Press Release, 5 April 2002
International agencies such as UNICEF and Save the Children Fund have
warned of the severe impact of Israel’s military assault on Palestinian
children across the West Bank.
Children
are being denied access to health services, and are unable to attend school and
engage in social activity.
UNICEF Press Release, 4 April 2002
[O]ver 200,000 children in the towns of Bethlehem,
Qalqilya, Tulkarem, Jenin and Nablus have been deprived of access to clean
water. Many parts of these towns are also without electricity, and fresh food
has run out in Bethlehem and Nablus. The continuing curfew in Jenin means that
poorer households may have little or no food at all. The curfews and closures
are affecting over 300,000 children, confining them to their homes, denying
them access to educational facilities and subjecting them to continuing fear.
Children continue to witness the unlawful arrests and killings of family
members and friends, as well as the destruction and looting of their homes and
neighbourhoods.
Save the Children Fund (SCF) Press Release, 12 April
2002
Israeli military
forces have caused massive damage to the civilian infrastructure in the
occupied Palestinian territories, including: private homes and property, public
institutions including schools, medical clinics, ministries of the Palestinian
Authority, non-governmental organizations, churches, mosques, historical sites,
refugee camps, and damage and destruction of streets, electricity, phone and
water supply in all areas invaded by the Israeli military. A comprehensive
assessment of the total damage inflicted by the Israeli military to the
civilian infrastructure during Operation Defensive Wall will not be possible
until the Israeli military permits unhindered access to all cities, villages
and refugee camps in the 1967 occupied territories. Generally, however, reports
indicate that damage and destruction is widespread and indiscriminate.
The
application of violence is very very generalized, there is not a question here
of pinpointing and targeting a few suspects on a wanted list, but there is
entry into homes, house after house, destruction of what is in the houses,
often destruction of the houses. In the West Bank alone, we are now beginning
to catch up if you will in Gaza, there are more than 2,500 destroyed or
partially destroyed shelters. In Gaza, we are talking about even more.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
estimates that the destruction of Palestinian homes alone has left several thousand
people homeless Local sources in Jenin estimate that approximately one third of
the homes in the Jenin refugee camp have been destroyed since 3 April by
Israeli bulldozers in a process referred to as ‘shaving’. There are reports as
well of homes being bulldozed on top of the people inside them in Jenin refugee
camp and in the Yasmina quarter in Nablus. Tank shells, missiles and
indiscriminate heavy machine gun fire from Apache helicopters have also heavily
damaged refugee shelters and homes.
I
have not myself been able to go to the camps (since) about a week ago or so,
but I am told from the reports we are getting in from the camps, we have our
staff inside there, that the situation is really unprecedented. There is this
massive destruction of shelters and destruction of infrastructure, water lines;
electricity is being cut off. Of course many installations that the Israeli
army has used have also suffered very bad damage. It is quite appalling to see,
and I have seen that myself, how some installations, for instance in the health
and medical area, have been destroyed and medicines smashed, a dentists's chair
kicked over and ripped out of the floor, threatening graffiti written in Hebrew
on the wall. It is really not what one would expect from a disciplined army to
see this kind of destruction.
Peter Hansen, UNRWA Commissioner General, UN Dept. of
Public Information (DPI), 5 April 2002
Israeli
military forces have also heavily damaged, ransacked and looted public institutions
and civil society organizations. This includes the Palestinian Ministry of
Civil Affairs, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Finance, Palestinian
Legislative Council, numerous municipal offices, libraries, charitable
societies and non-governmental organizations such as al-Haq, Union of
Palestinian Medical Relief Committees, Mandela Institute for Political
Prisoners, and Mattin Group. Many institutions remain occupied by Israeli
military forces and independent observers are unable to assess damage and
destruction. In those institutions where individuals have gained access, there
is widespread destruction of computers, files, and office equipment,
confiscation of computer hard drives and documents (including financial
records) as well as structural damage (Palestinian Emergency NGO Initiative in
Jerusalem, 13 April 2002).
They broke everything when they came in, and stole as
well. We are merchants and have money at home always, they stole all the money
we have, lots of money,
at least 25,000 USD, and also batteries, 3 mobiles and expensive watches.
It is crazy, but they also stole our prayer rugs and Qur'an! "
(Internet reports, name withheld), March 30, 10
a.m., al-Bireh
They came in, placed us all in one room,
searched the house, and when we came out we realized that the following was
missing: 3000 USD, NIS 1800, pens, a watch, a video camera battery, brand new
in its box... they left the box, and took also my 050 (Israeli) mobile phone.
(Internet reports, name withheld), March 30, 11
a.m., al-Bireh
Extra-Judicial Killings
Israel’s policy of extra-judicial killings appears to have reached a new
level during the latest military assault on Palestinian cities, villages and
refugee camps. Israel has continued the illegal policy referred to by the
military as "death kill verification".
In Hebron, at 2.30 this afternoon, two Apache
helicopters attacked a civilian car, in another attempt of extra-judicial
killing. The helicopters fired three missiles, however they missed the car that
was driving in Abu Ghanam street, downtown Hebron. The missiles hit another car
and destroyed it completely. There were seven persons, most of them bystanders
injured in the attack, including 11-year old Mohammad Amin Sughayer, who is in
critical condition, with second and third degree burns on 90 percent of his
body.
LAW, 5 April 2002
Moreover, there are numerous reports of executions of unarmed
Palestinian prisoners. The first reports surfaced with news and photographs of
five officers from the Palestinian security forces – Khaled Fathi Mahmoud Awad
(33), Ismail Ibrahim Zaid (56), Said Hamam Abdelrahman (60), Abdelrahman Tawfiq
Abdallah (58), and Omar Muhammad Musa (54) – shot dead at close range in
Ramallah (LAW, 30 March 2002). Israeli military forces subsequently prevented
journalists and independent observers from entering the building where the
bodies were found. Due to severe restrictions imposed by Israel on humanitarian
personnel and journalists independent observers are unable to confirm the total
number of extra-judicial killings.
Eyewitnesses from Jenin refugee camp report summary executions of
civilians/combatants after detention; resistance fighters in the camp reported
that eight fighters were summarily executed on 10 April in front of their
families after their surrender to the Israeli army. Eyewitnesses have also
reported that Israeli forces have dug mass graves in the refugee camp, dumped
bodies into the sewage, removed bodies to unknown places, and bulldozed entire
areas of the camp in order to “clean up” the site (LAW, 8 April 2002). Two weeks into Israel’s military assault, the UN
Special Rapporteur on extra-judicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Ms. Asma
Jahangir, voiced alarm at the growing number of reports, particularly in
connection with the military assault on Jenin refugee camp and called for
urgent and prompt investigation of all allegations.
Israeli
military forces have conducted massive sweeps through cities, villages and
refugee camps in the 1967 occupied Palestinian territories detaining and
arresting thousands of Palestinians. It is estimated (B’tselem, UNRWA, UNSCO)
that Israel has detained between 3,500 and 5,000 Palestinians at military and
detention facilities in Ofer (near Ramallah), Megiddo (inside Israel), Salem
(near Jenin) and at other permanent detention facilities during the course of
two weeks of military operations.
In many cases, mass detentions were conducted according to broad
criteria of age and gender, thus many Palestinians were detained simply because
they were present where detentions were being carried out and not because they
were under suspicion. In most cases, families are not informed of the
whereabouts of their detained relatives, as the identity of many of them is
unknown. Israeli and Palestinian human rights organizations have received
information about inhumane conditions (insufficient food, overcrowding, cold,
humiliation, beating) and the use of torture during interrogations in the Ofer
military camp located near Ramallah. The Israeli Central Commander of the West
Bank has issued a sweeping order pertaining to all detainees that bans meetings
with lawyers. As a result, a close examination of holding conditions is
impossible. The High Court of Justice has rejected a petition of four human
rights organizations, which demanded to be allowed into the Ofer military camp.
I was handcuffed and blindfolded and taken along with
another 90 men to their military camp in Salem, just outside Jenin. We had no
food or water for two days and had to stay outside. I was beaten up and
undressed. I had to kneel for hours, handcuffed with my head bent down …
tightening the handcuffs so bad it would stop our blood circulation.