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Israel Obstructs UN
Fact-Finding Mission to Jenin Refugee Camp
End Israel's Impunity!
(E/32/2002)
BADIL Resource Center
24 April 2002
For Immediate Release
On Monday, 22 April, UN
Secretary General Kofi Annan announced the names of his team that would
set out as fast as possible to "develop accurate information
regarding recent events in the Jenin refugee camp" in accordance with
UN Security Council Resolution 1405 adopted three days earlier. The
Palestinian leadership, although criticizing that the UN Mission lacks the
mandate and legal authorities of an independent international commission
of inquiry, welcomed the initiative. The Israeli government had no choice
but to offer its cooperation, after the United States had refused to veto
the UN Mission in the Security Council. However, Israel's right-wing
government is internally divided over the question if and how to relate to
the UN Fact-Finding team and has engaged in an effort to delay its arrival
to the region. Since Monday Israeli spokespersons have raised that the UN
team, composed of former Finish president Martti Ahtisaari, former UN High
Commissioner on Refugees Sadako Ogata, former head of the International
Committee of the Red Cross Cornelio Sommaruga, US General Bill Nash
(military advisor) and US police expert Fitzgerald, was selected
"without consultation, lacks technical expertise and is not
neural." Today Israel, also "concerned that the UN team's
activities might not remain limited to the geographic area of Jenin,"
reportedly suspended its agreement to cooperate with the UN Fact-Finding
Mission.
WHAT IS ISRAEL TRYING TO HIDE IN JENIN?
Information about what exactly happened during Israel's brutal military
assault, curfew and media black-out in the Jenin refugee camp between 2 -
19 April has remained partial, and systematic professional evidence is
scarce. However, an Amnesty International research team declared
that it had received credible evidence of serious Israeli violations, such
as: failure to give civilians warning on time to evacuate Jenin refugee
camp before Apache helicopters launched their first attacks; failure to
protect civilians in the refugee camp, who are "protected
people" under the Fourth Geneva Convention; allegations of
extra-judicial executions; failure, for 13 days, to allow humanitarian
assistance to the people who were trapped in the rubble of demolished
houses or running out of food and water; denial of medical assistance to
the wounded and deliberate targeting of ambulances; excessive use of
lethal force and using civilians as "human shields;"
ill-treatment, including beatings and degrading treatment, of Palestinian
detainees; and, extensive damage to property with no apparent military
necessity. Moreover, Amnesty's forensic expert asked: "Where are the
bodies and where are the seriously injured?" According to a
preliminary census among the scattered population of the Jenin refugee
camp, at least 150 persons have remained missing - not yet tracked down in
one of Israel's detention centers or dead? In its press conference held in
London on 22 April, Amnesty International summarized: "The evidence
compiled indicates that serious
breaches of international human rights and humanitarian law were
committed, including war crimes, but only an independent international
commission of inquiry can establish the full facts and the scale of these
violations." (AI press release, MDE 15/058/2002)
END ISRAEL'S IMPUNITY: An Agenda for Investigating Potential War Crimes
War crimes committed by the Israeli military occupation did not start with
the excessive use of force employed against the Palestinian uprising since
September 2000. The UN Commission on Human Rights, for example, has
considered Israel's continued grave breaches of the 1949 Fourth Geneva
Convention as rising to the level of war crimes since 1972 and affirmed
this view during a Special Session of the Commission in October 2000. War
crimes are not geographically limited to the Jenin refugee camp.
Massacres, or a large number of Palestinian casualties, are not the sole
indicators of war crimes.
Based on the categories defined by the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention and
the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, and based on
evidence documented by numerous local and international human rights
organizations and humanitarian agencies, war crimes committed during
Israel's military assaults in the 1967 occupied Palestinian territories in
March and April 2002 include:
-
Willful killing or
killing or wounding a combatant who, having laid down his arms or
having no longer means of defence, has surrendered at discretion;
-
Extensive destruction
and appropriation of property not justified by military necessity and
carried out unlawfully and wantonly;
-
The use of protected
persons as human shields;
-
Intentionally
launching an attack in the knowledge that such attack will cause
incidental loss of life or injury to civilians or damage to civilian
objects or widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural
environment which would be clearly excessive in relation to the
concrete and direct overall military advantage anticipated;
-
Attacking or
bombarding, by whatever means, towns, villages, dwellings or buildings
which are undefended and which are not military objectives;
-
Committing outrages
upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading
treatment;
-
Intentionally
directing attacks against buildings dedicated to religion, education,
art, science or charitable purposes, historic monuments, hospitals and
places where the sick and wounded are collected, provided they are not
military objectives; and,
-
Pillage.
Crimes against humanity
may include:
-
Imprisonment or other
severe deprivation of physical liberty in violation of fundamental
rules of international law;
-
Persecution - i.e.,
the intentional and severe deprivation of fundamental rights contrary
to international law by reason of the identity of the group or
collectivity - against any identifiable group or collectivity on
political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender ...,
or other grounds that are universally recognized as impermissible
under international law;
-
The crime of
apartheid defined as inhumane acts committed in the context of an
institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by
one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed
with the intention of maintaining that regime.
(See also: BADIL
Special Report, 15 April 2002)
The current UN
Fact-Finding Mission set up by the UN Security Council on Friday, 19 April
2002 can represent a step towards establishing the truth, and Israel must
not be permitted to obstruct its rapid dispatch to the region.
"However, an independent international commission of inquiry should
follow without delay. This commission should have the means and the
expertise necessary to carry out a serious and thorough investigation.
"The report of this investigation must be made public and those found
responsible brought to justice." (AI press release, MDE 15/058/2002). |