Excellency,

I write to draw your urgent attention to the escalation of inflammatory rhetoric, incitement and intimidation by both Israeli officials and extremist settlers against the Palestinian people and the Palestinian leadership, as well as the escalation of military raids and violence perpetrated by the Israeli occupying forces against the Palestinian civilian population in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem.

Israel, the occupying Power, persists with such unlawful, provocative behavior in deliberate and grave breach of international law and the relevant UN resolutions, including its systematic violation of Security Council resolution 2334 (2016), which called upon both parties, inter alia, “to observe calm and restraint, and to refrain from provocative actions, incitement and inflammatory rhetoric, with the aim, inter alia of de-escalating the situation on the ground…” The exact opposite has been done by the Israeli government, which continues to foment hatred and violence against the Palestinian civilian population under its occupation and against the Palestinian leadership. This reckless behavior is heightening tensions, deepening mistrust, and threatens to provoke further instability and violence, which must be averted in order to protect civilian lives. [Read more…]

Excellency,

Innocent, defenseless Palestinian children continue to be murdered in cold blood by the military forces of Israel, the occupying Power, in grave breach of international law, including humanitarian and human rights law.  While the Convention on the Rights of the Child, in Article 6, affirms that “every child has the inherent right to life” and commits States Parties to ensuring “to the maximum extent possible the survival and development of the child”, Palestinian children are being deprived of this right every single day by this cruel and illegal occupation.

Israel’s killing and maiming of Palestinian peaceful protesters in the context of the Great Return March in the blockaded Gaza Strip in particular continues unabated and with absolute impunity. We regret to have to convey yet another list of names of Palestinian civilians, including four children, wantonly killed for the sole act of calling for freedom and an end to their dehumanization under this oppressive, colonial occupation.

On 23 October, Muntasir Muhammad al-Bazz, age 17, was killed by Israeli occupying forces, who routinely open fire on unarmed Palestinian civilians carrying out what is clearly a kill-to-shoot policy.

On 26 October, four Palestinians, Ahmad Said Abu Libdeh, age 22, Ayyash Ghassan Shaath, age 23, Nassar Iyad Abu Teem, age 23, Muhammad Khalid Abd al-Nabi, age 27, and Jabir Abu Hameesa, age 27, were also brutally murdered by the occupying forces.

This was followed on 27 October by the targeting of more than 85 locations in the densely-populated Gaza Strip by Israeli warplanes, and the killing on 28 October of three more Palestinian boys, Abdul Hameed Abdul Aziz Abu Zaher, age 13, Mohammed Ibrahim al-Sutari, age 13, and Khaled Bassam Abu Saeed, age 14. This brings the total number of Palestinians killed since the protests began on 30 March, to at least 217, and more than 20,000 civilians injured, many gravely wounded and disabled for life. [Read more…]

Excellency,

I regret to inform that Israel, the occupying Power, has continued with its intentional killing and injuring of Palestinian civilians under its military occupation, in utter disregard for basic morality, the rule of law, including humanitarian and human rights law, and UN resolutions that have repeatedly demanded an end to such illegal policies and practices.

Since our last letter, the occupying Power’s forces have continued to shoot-to-kill and shoot-to-maim Palestinian civilians protesting peacefully against the injustice that their people have been subjected to as a result of decades of colonization, dispossession, apartheid and the structural violence of the occupation. Such systematic targeting of unarmed civilians, including children, is deplorable and illegal, constituting war crimes and crimes against humanity, and must be countered by the international community in both word and deed.

On 2 October, an Israeli sniper shot and killed an elderly Palestinian man, Ibrahim Ahmad Nassar al-Arouqi, age 74, as he stood in the street near his home in al-Maghazi refugee camp.

On 3 October, Ahmed Abu Habil, age 15, succumbed to his wounds after an Israeli soldier struck him with a tear gas canister that became lodged in his skull causing lethal damage.

On 5 October, Faris al-Sirsawi, age 12, Hussein al-Raqab, age 18, and Mahmoud Akram Samaan, age 24, were shot and killed by Israeli occupation forces. On 7 October, another child, still unidentified, was shot and killed.

On 12 October, Israeli forces continued their killing spree, executing seven Palestinians – Ahmed Abdallah Abu Naeem, age 17, Afifi Afifi, age 18, Mohammad Issam Abbas, age 21, Ahmed Ibrahim al-Taweel, age 22, Tamer Iyad Abu Armana, age 22, Abdallah Barham al-Daghma, age 25, and Mohammed Abdulhafid Ismail, age 29. [Read more…]

Excellency,

I am compelled to write to you once again as unarmed, defenseless Palestinian civilian protesters participating in the “Great March of Return” continue to be brutally killed by Israeli occupation forces for daring to raise their voices to protest the systematic violation of their human rights, to demand an end to Israeli occupation and siege, and to call for freedom and return to their ancestral lands.

Last Friday, 28 September, was the single bloodiest day of the Great March of Return protests since 14 May, when Israeli occupying forces fatally injured more than 60 Palestinians. In this latest onslaught, the occupying forces killed seven Palestinian civilians. Among those killed were two young Palestinian boys, Nasir Azmi Musbeh, age 12, and Mohammed Naif al-Houm, age 14, and Mohammed Ali Mohammed Inshasi, age 18, Iyad Khalil Ahmad al-Shaer, age 18, Mohammed Bassam Mohammed Shakhsa, age 24, Mohammed Ashraf al-Awawdeh, age 25, and Mohammed Walid Haniyeh, age 32. Moreover, on 24 September, yet another protester, Muhammad Fayiz Abu al-Sadiq, age 21, was killed by Israeli occupying forces. Hundreds of other civilians have also been injured as a result of the live fire and other ammunition routinely unleashed by the occupying forces against the civilian population. [Read more…]

Excellency,

I write to you in follow up to previous letters regarding the human rights violations and war crimes being perpetrated by Israel, the occupying Power, in Occupied Palestine, including East Jerusalem.

In particular, I am compelled at this time to draw urgent attention to the imminent threat of forcible transfer facing the Palestinian Bedouin community of Khan al-Ahmar Abu al-Helu, in the sensitive so-called “E-1 area” of the West Bank northeast of occupied East Jerusalem, as the occupying Power persists with its illegal policies and measures of aggression against this extremely vulnerable community and against our land.

On 5 September, the Israeli “Supreme Court” rejected an appeal against the demolition of Khan al-Ahmar and ruled in favor of forcibly expelling its 181 inhabitants. By such an unjust and unlawful ruling, the Court has determined that it is permissible for the occupying Power to destroy the entire village including all Palestinian civilian and livelihood structures within the next seven days. According to Israeli plans, the community, which has faced the repeated trauma of displacement and dispossession, will likely be forcibly relocated to an area adjacent a garbage dump in the area of Abu Dis in the West Bank, an area that is bereft of agricultural land on which these pastoral families have subsisted all their lives.

We condemn in the strongest terms the endorsement by the occupying Power’s illegitimate court system of yet another State-sponsored international crime. As stressed by Amnesty International in reaction to the so-called ruling, “Forcible transfer of people under occupation is a serious breach of the IV Geneva Convention. The deportation or transfer of all or parts of the population of the occupied territory within or outside this territory constitutes a war crime under Article 8 of the Rome Statute.” [Read more…]