Eight Palestinians, including a child, and at least 115 others were injured in bloody incidents that included armed clashes in Gaza City on Sunday, 1 October 2006. PCHR strongly condemns these incidents, which extended to other areas throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), and calls upon the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), represented by the Attorney-General to investigate these incidents and bring those found responsible for them to justice. These clashes came in the context of increasing tension and mutual violence between Hamas and Fatah movements, especially as efforts to reach an agreement between the two sides and form a national unity government failed. Read more about Eight killed, including child, in Fateh-Hamas clashes in Gaza Strip
U.S. Consul General Jake Walles and chief staff members of the U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem and U.S. Embassy in Israel met with representatives of the Campaign for the Right of Entry/Re-Entry to discuss Israel’s new policy of denying entry into Israel of U.S. and other foreign nationals wishing to access the occupied Palestinian territory. The Campaign delegates presented Ambassador Walles with an overview of the Israeli practice and the detrimental effect it is having on family unification, economic and academic development, and the maintaining of a pluralistic social fabric needed to advance an environment for peace in the area. Read more about U.S. Consul General in Jerusalem expresses concern about Israeli refusals to issue visas
Two of the victims were children brothers, and were killed when IOF fired a surface-to-surface rocket at them without any justification. The other two were killed in Rafah in an extra-judicial execution crime, which also resulted in the injury of two others, one of them a child. PCHR’s preliminary investigation into the first crime indicates that at approximately 9:15 on Friday, 29 September 2006, IOF deployed inside the Gaza Strip near Nahal Oz checkpoint, east of Gaza City, fired a surface-to-surface rocket at two children riding their bicycles near El-Shawwa Gas Station on Salah El-Deen Road west of Beit Lahia. Read more about Israeli forces kill four, including two boys riding bicycles, in Gaza
On 29 September 2006, the sixth anniversary of the second intifada against the Israeli occupation, the international community appears to have forgotten the continuing Israeli disregard for international human rights and humanitarian law in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, together constituting the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). The Palestinian people looks to the UN General Assembly, the body that in 2004 requested the International Court of Justice for an advisory opinion on the construction of the Wall in the OPT, as a source of hope at a moment of extreme distress and disillusion. Read more about Intervention to Member States of the United Nations on the Sixth Anniversary of the Second Intifada
This report coincides with the 6th anniversary of the eruption of the al-Aqsa Intifada, which broke out following the former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s provocative visit to al-Aqsa Mosque (the Holy Sanctuary) in occupied Jerusalem. Over the last six years, Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) have perpetrated grave breaches of international law, including war crimes, against Palestinian civilians in a manner unprecedented since 1967. The sixth year of the Intifada witnessed an increasing escalation in Israeli war crimes as the international community remained silent and the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 failed to meet their obligations to provide protection for Palestinian civilians. Read more about Six years of Israeli aggression and war crimes in the OPT
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour briefed the Human Rights Council today on the worldwide work of her Office, voicing concern at the deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan and announcing that she would soon visit Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Turning to the Palestinian Territories (OPT), she stressed that only a political solution “will bring an end to the loss of life, immense suffering and hardship.” Her forthcoming visit will allow her to conduct a first-hand assessment of the situation. Read more about UN human rights chief to visit Occupied Palestinian territories, Israel
On 13 September 2006, the Haifa District Court (sitting as a Water Tribunal) rejected an appeal filed by Adalah on behalf of 767 Palestinian Bedouin citizens of Israel living in unrecognized villages in the Naqab (Negev), demanding access to sources of clean drinking water. Adalah Attorney Marwan Dalal submitted the appeal against prior decisions of the Water Commissioner, who had also denied these requests. Adalah argued in the appeal, filed on 20 April 2005, that Arab Bedouin living in the unrecognized villages in the south possess the basic human right to water and health, which must be granted by the state in order to guarantee the constitutional right to dignity. Read more about Bedouin families denied water rights in unrecognized villages
Undoubtedly, the State of Israel has the right to protect the lives of its citizens from threat, including, the threat posed by Qassam rockets fired from the Gaza Strip. However, not all means of response and action are permissible. Aiming attacks at civilian objects is forbidden under International Humanitarian Law and is considered a war crime. The power plant bombed by Israel is a purely civilian object and bombing it did nothing to impede the ability of Palestinian organizations to fire rockets into Israeli territory. Read more about Act of Vengeance: Israel's Bombing of the Gaza Power Plant and its Effects
Describing a ‘tragic’ human rights situation for ordinary Palestinians living in the occupied territory, an independent United Nations expert today presented his report to the newly established Human Rights Council, sparking criticism from the Israeli representative that the work was one-sided and imbalanced. John Dugard, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, said that he wished to speak only about Israeli actions against ordinary, non-militant, non-activist Palestinians who simply wanted to lead a good life, educate their children and enjoy the basic amenities of life. Read more about UN human rights expert reports on 'appalling' conditions for ordinary Palestinians
Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) has used excessive force in the north and south of the Gaza Strip during a 9-hour span today, Thursday, 21 September 2006, resulting in the death of 5 Palestinian civilians and the injury of 7 others, including a father and 2 of his children. Two of the victims including a woman were killed in cold blood in Rafah. They were left to bleed to death inside their houses. The other 3 victims were children from the town of Jabalia who were killed by a surface-to-surface rocket as they were herding sheep. Read more about In 9 hours in Gaza, IDF kills 5, including 3 children, and injures 7
