Thursday, October 26, 2023

Israeli occupation of Palestine: facts through neutral lenses

If someone honestly believes that Israel is doing nothing wrong to Palestinian population and Israel can continue to massacre in Gaza and on Palestine under the pretext of “Israel has the right to defend itself”, please check these out:

United Nation Special Rapporteur’s report by Miss Francesca Al Banessa on Israeli occupation. “United Nations Secretary General said yesterday the 7th of October did not happen in a vacuum but in the context of 56 years of suffocating occupation Israel has imposed on the Palestinian people this occupation is unlawful under international law…building of colonies, confiscating land and brutalizing Palestinian population is a war crime in and itself…this has become a tool of war exposing the population to inescapable risks of death, these are also war crimes and crimes against humanity because this is what international starvation is in international humanitarian law. These crimes also have to be accounted for. Nothing can justify the the deliberate toll inflicted on civilians both Israelis and Palestinians” 

https://youtu.be/N7NiPqSU2sk?si=ts9w0xtNyLLaZYwR

Killing of Shireen Abu Akleh, the Al-Jazeera journalist

The investigation by the United Nation’s “Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel” on the killing of journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was published on September 5, 2023: “Israeli forces used lethal force without justification under international human rights law”

https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N23/260/71/PDF/N2326071.pdf

Amnesty International’s labeled Israel as Apartheid state

Amnesty International has declared that “Israel’s apartheid against Palestinians: a cruel system of domination and a crime against humanity”

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/02/israels-apartheid-against-palestinians-a-cruel-system-of-domination-and-a-crime-against-humanity/

 

Human Rights Watch (HRW) calls it as war crime

Israel-Hamas war: 'One war crime does not justify another,' - Sari Bashi, Program Director at Human Rights Watch.

 

https://www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/perspective/20231025-israel-hamas-war-one-war-crime-does-not-justify-another-human-rights-watch-says

 

Geneva Convention calls collective punishment a war crime

Article 33 - Individual responsibility, collective penalties, pillage, reprisals. No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited. Pillage is prohibited. Reprisals against protected persons and their property are prohibited.

https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/gciv-1949/article-33

 

Legitimacy of the struggle for independence from occupation

The resolution reaffirmed “the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples for independence, territorial integrity, national unity and liberation from colonial and foreign domination and foreign occupation by all available means, including armed struggle”.

https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/opinions/2017/7/20/palestinians-have-a-legal-right-to-armed-struggle

 

History of United Nation’s resolutions and mandates

These are all the resolutions that the United Nation have taken for Palestine and Israel. Israel has been constantly violating the resolutions of Palestinian statehood:

- Palestine was among former Ottoman territories placed under UK administration by the League of Nations in 1922.

- All of these territories eventually became fully independent States, except Palestine, where in addition to “the rendering of administrative assistance and advice” the British Mandate incorporated the “Balfour Declaration” of 1917, expressing support for “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people”.

- During the Mandate, from 1922 to 1947, large-scale Jewish immigration, mainly from Eastern Europe took place, the numbers swelling in the 1930s with the Nazi persecution.

- Arab demands for independence and resistance to immigration led to a rebellion in 1937, followed by continuing terrorism and violence from both sides.

- UK considered various formulas to bring independence to a land ravaged by violence. In 1947, the UK turned the Palestine problem over to the UN.

- After looking at alternatives, the UN proposed terminating the Mandate and partitioning Palestine into two independent States, one Palestinian Arab and the other Jewish, with Jerusalem internationalized (Resolution 181 (II) of 1947). 

- One of the two envisaged States proclaimed its independence as Israel and in the 1948 war involving neighboring Arab States expanded to 77 percent of the territory of mandate Palestine, including the larger part of Jerusalem. Over half of the Palestinian Arab population fled or were expelled.

- In 1974 the General Assembly reaffirmed the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination, national independence, sovereignty, and to return.

- In June 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon with the declared intention to eliminate the PLO. A cease-fire was arranged. PLO troops withdrew from Beirut and were transferred to neighboring countries. 

- Despite the guarantees of safety for Palestine refugees left behind, a large-scale massacre took place in the Sabra and Shatila camps.

- In 1987, a mass uprising against the Israeli occupation began in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (the intifada). Methods used by the Israeli forces resulted in mass injuries and heavy loss of life among the civilian Palestinian population.

- A series of subsequent negotiations culminated in the mutual recognition between the Government of Israel and the PLO, the representative of the Palestinian people, and the signing in 1993 of the Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements (DOP or “Oslo Accord”), as well as the subsequent implementation agreements, which led to the partial withdrawal of Israeli forces, the elections to the Palestinian Council and the Presidency of the Palestinian Authority, the partial release of prisoners and the establishment of a functioning administration in the areas under Palestinian self-rule.

- West Bank separation wall, located mostly within the Occupied Palestinian Territory, ruled illegal by the International Court of Justice. In 2002, the Security Council affirmed a vision of two States, Israel and Palestine.

 https://www.un.org/unispal/history/

 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-54116567.amp


Human toll of the occupation of Palestine

“ The report stated that between October 7 and 26, 7,028 Palestinians were killed, including 2,913 children, and blamed the deaths on Israeli military “aggression.” It said a further 281 bodies had not yet been identified.

The ministry said the actual number of dead is likely to be much higher than stated in the report. The list of 6,747 names gives the sex, age and identity card number of each of the victims”

https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/27/middleeast/gaza-death-toll-report-intl/index.html

“The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has been tracking deaths in the conflict since 2008 and its data shows that 5,600 Palestinians died up to 2020 while 115,000 were injured. 250 Israelis died during the same period while 5,600 were injured.”


https://www.statista.com/chart/amp/16516/israeli-palestinian-casualties-by-in-gaza-and-the-west-bank/

I can’t change the opinions of people who are blind but who can see and hear out, the above facts should open up their mind and heart.

No comments:

Post a Comment