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Al-Ahram Weekly 6 - 12 April 2000 Issue No. 476 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 6 - 12 April 2000 Issue No. 476
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Summit Features Focus Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Suffer the children
By Graham Usher
With much of the world's gaze focused on the health (or otherwise) of the various tracks of the Middle East peace process, less attention has been paid to the enduring illegality of Israel's occupation of Lebanese, Syrian and Palestinian territories. That oversight was partially remedied last week with the publication of a report on Israel's human rights violations in the West Bank and Gaza presented to the United Nations Human Rights Commission by its 'Special Rapporteur,' the Italian legal expert, Giorgio Giacomelli.
In a scathing indictment of the entire range of Israel's human rights violations in the occupied territories, Giacomelli highlights two particular areas of concern.
The first is Israel's "wholesale imposition of its domestic laws" in occupied East Jerusalem and the "special discrimination practised by its arbitrary denial and revocation of [Palestinian] residency" rights in the city. Giacomelli notes that, since Israel's military occupation of the eastern part of Jerusalem in 1967, some 6,264 Palestinians in East Jerusalem have had their residency status removed, including "between 2,200 and 3,000" since 1996. It is a policy that has adversely affected the lives of some 25,000 people, 'dismembered' Palestinian families and left "dramatic consequences for the demographic, historic and cultural character of the city," he says.
The second is the even more neglected area of Israel's ongoing abuse of Palestinian children. Giacomelli estimates that some 90 per cent of Palestinian children in the occupied territories have experienced some form of "traumatic event" in their lives, whether it is night-time raids on their homes by Israeli soldiers or the public humiliation of parents by soldiers in their presence.
Nor as with the Palestinians in East Jerusalem has the situation been improved much by the Oslo peace process. Giacomelli records that last year four Palestinian were killed and 102 injured from actions by Israeli soldiers or Jewish settlers or, in one instance, by both at the same time. He notes that 220 Palestinian 'minors' (i.e. between the ages of 14 and 17) were detained by Israel for periods between one and six months, a flagrant breach of the UN's Convention on Children's Rights, to which Israel is a signatory. There are currently 75 minors imprisoned in Israeli jails, says Giacomelli.
The two particular areas of abuse are also connected. As a result of Israel's policy of revoking Palestinians' residency status in East Jerusalem, some 10,000 Palestinian children are unable to obtain birth certificates, concludes Giacomelli, a denial that deprives them of the right to social and health insurance and education in Jerusalem's municipal schools.
Israel's UN ambassador, David Peleg, gave Tel Aviv's official response to the report. It "provides merely a platform for unsubstantiated allegations against Israel," he said.
