Press Releases
On Wednesday, 19 January 2022, the Israeli occupation forces demolished Palestinian homes and structures owned by the Salhia family in Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in the north of occupied Jerusalem, proceeding to assault the residents and supporters before arresting approximately 20 individuals. Israel seeks to displace Palestinians living in Sheikh Jarrah for the second time – considering that they were originally refugees since the Nakba in 1948 – to replace them with colonizers and to use their lands and properties for the benefit of varying settler-colonial organizations. These policies and practices ensue as a continuation of Israel’s ongoing forcible displacement of the Palestinian people and a perpetuation of Israel’s repression and institutionalized discrimination against Palestinians.
In tangent with the displacement occurring in Sheikh Jarrah, Israel is carrying out large-scale displacement operations in al-Naqab under the pretense of forestation of arid land, amongst other justifications that Israel creates for itself. In reality, however, these practices and policies, similar to all others implemented in Mandatory Palestine, are part of Israel’s systematic and comprehensive apartheid-colonial enterprise that aims to acquire the maximum amount of land with the minimum number of Palestinians.
In addition, Israel and its allies continue criminalizing Palestinian resistance and the Palestinian people’s political and social agency by stigmatizing them with accusations of terrorism and antisemitism. This works to deny the Palestinian people’s inalienable rights that are enshrined in United Nations resolutions and international principles. Concurrently, Israel is enabled to enjoy complete political and legal impunity, which allows it to continue violating its human rights obligations and committing international crimes against the Palestinian people, who are considered protected persons under international humanitarian law, human rights law, and international principles.
Protecting Palestinians and ensuring the full spectrum of their rights, holding Israel accountable for its ongoing international crimes, and enforcing its compliance with international law are both an obligation and responsibility on third party States and not an endowment offered by the international community to the Palestinian people. Accordingly, the failure of the international community and individual States to fulfill their responsibilities towards the Palestinian people provides not only a cover that guarantees Israel's continued impunity, but also international complicity which legitimizes the persecution of our people wherever they are.
As such, the GPRN calls on:
- Third party States and UN member States to abide by their obligations to protect Palestinians who are regarded as protected persons under international law, to hold Israel accountable, and to put an end to its continued impunity.
- The Palestinian leadership to review their programs and plans on the basis of the need to develop an effective resistance strategy.