UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, Michael Lynk, published his annual report on Wednesday, addressing Israel’s illegal policies of collective punishment, which the Palestinian people.
Emphasizing Israel’s reliance on collective punishment as a “prominent instrument in its coercive toolbox of population control,” Lynk called on Israel to “[e]nd all measures amounting to collective punishment”.
#Israeli Bulldozers Demolish Two #Palestinian Houses in #WestBank https://t.co/DOUPccUaVK via @PalestineChron pic.twitter.com/9gQktynAC2
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The report highlighted Israeli policies and practices amounting to illegal collective punishment, including the 13-year-long closure on the Gaza Strip, punitive house demolitions, withholding of bodies, and restrictions of freedom of movement.
In his report, Lynk presented a list of recommendations, calling on Israel to comply with international law and the international consensus by bringing a full and speedy end to its 53-year-old occupation of the Palestinian territory.
He also asked the Israeli government to end all measures amounting to collective punishment.
‘Capturing Occupation’: Talking to the Human Rights Defenders of Hebron
In this episode of Palestine Chronicle TV, we chat with members of Hebron’s ‘Human Rights Defenders’.As illegal Jewish settlers (colonists) increase their attacks on Palestinian civilians in the occupied city of Al Khalil (Hebron), the people of the Palestinian city continue to mount a campaign of popular resistance. One of the channels of resistance is Human Rights Defenders, “a grass-roots, non-partisan Palestinian organization working to support nonviolent popular resistance through popular direct action and documentation of human rights violations committed by the Occupation.” To understand the situation in Hebron better, we speak to Badee Dwaik, Head of Human Rights Defenders, Raghad Neiroukh, a journalist, and Flora Thomas, a photographic artist.
Posted by The Palestine Chronicle on Wednesday, July 15, 2020
While the report is mainly focused on the issue of collective punishment, it also addresses “a number of other issues including the continued expansion of Israeli settlements; the increase in settlers’ violence; the detention of Palestinians; use of settlement products; Israel’s planned annexation of parts of the Palestinian West Bank and its potential impact; the situation of Human Rights Defenders and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Shahd Qaddoura, Legal Research and Advocacy Assistant at Al-Haq welcomed the report stating,
“Professor Lynk’s report examines one of Israel’s well-worn policies of imposing collective punishment measures as a tool of repression, control and domination against the Palestinian people to maintain its settler-colonial and apartheid regime. As Palestinians continue to suffer from the absence of international justice and accountability, including at the International Criminal Court, Israel continued to benefit from an unlawfully created culture of impunity.”
(Palestine Chronicle, WAFA, Social Media)
