Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights presented a testimony to the United Nations Committee to Investigate Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, through the Skype service, which covered the period between the two meetings of the committee from the date of 18 / 6/2019, and as of 9/6/2020.
He presented the testimony of the Al-Mizan Yamen Al-Madhoun Center, and reviewed the most important developments in the occupied Palestinian territories, especially the Gaza Strip during the specified period.
The blockade and its disastrous effects
The Center’s testimony focused on the continuation of the Israeli blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip 13 years ago, and its catastrophic effects that negatively impacted on the reality of human rights and humanitarian conditions in general, especially the persistence of obstacles to accessing health care, which during the period covered by the certificate resulted in according to the Al-Mizan Center’s documentation, to The death of three patients, including two women.
Al-Madhoun reviewed the poverty and unemployment indicators for the committee, where the unemployment rate according to official statistics reached 45.1% among the workforce in the Gaza Strip, the poverty rate reached 50%, extreme poverty 38%, and the food insecurity rate 68.2% for the total population of the Strip. He pointed out that these figures may not accurately reflect the reality in light of the economic collapse in the Gaza Strip, the unprecedented expansion of the numbers of the poor, and the continued absence of hope to change the conditions in the sector.
Electricity and Corona
Al-Madhoun touched on the continuation of the power outage crisis, as the daily electricity program (8 hours has arrived, at most, against 8 hours cut), which reflects negatively on all aspects of life in the sector, and addressed the negative repercussions of the lack of electrical energy supplies, which had a major impact The pollution problems are exacerbated, as sea pollution rates reached 73% of the total beaches in the sector. The lack of energy supplies also affected various other sectors such as the economy, health care, housing, sanitation, and the provision of clean water, and the conversion of apartments into prisons for the elderly and persons with disabilities, in light of the water cutoffs and the elevators stopping.
And he pointed out that the new danger represented by the spread of Corona disease, puts everyone, mainly the international community, before a legal and moral entitlement to stop the Israeli violations, and work to support the health and environmental sectors that have deteriorated over the years and have been unable to provide the minimum due to Israeli practices.
Gaza is a major prison
Al-Mizan Center affirmed in its testimony that Israel has succeeded in turning the Gaza Strip into a large enclave and prison, in which all types of violations against Palestinian citizens are practiced before the silence of the international community, in the absence of protection, and the absence of any horizon that gives them hope to end their human suffering.
He reviewed the outcome of the Israeli violations during the previous period, as the number of victims of the participants in the return marches, since its inception on 30/03/2018, reached (217) martyrs, including 48 children, two women, 9 with disabilities, 4 paramedics, and two journalists Also, 19,236 people were injured, including 4,966 children, 867 women, 255 paramedics, and 173 journalists. Of the 9,515 injured, live bullets, including 2,134 children and 191 women, were reported.
Meanwhile, the death toll from the Israeli military attacks on the Gaza Strip during the same period reached 35 martyrs, including 8 children and 3 women, and 60 others, including 27 children and 8 women, were injured, in addition to damage to 57 houses and 19 commercial and industrial establishments And destroying 3,347 dunums of agricultural land.
He pointed out that the Israeli occupation forces continue to control the crossings, and the use of the Beit Hanoun crossing as a trap to arrest Palestinians, especially the patients and their companions, as he indicated that the occupation forces arrested 88 Palestinians during the period covered by the testimony, including 17 who were arrested from the Beit Hanoun (Erez) checkpoint.
Violations against patients and fishermen
In its testimony, Al-Mizan Center stressed the need of the sector´s growing patients to reach Palestinian hospitals in the West Bank, including Jerusalem, in light of the blockade that prevents the health sector´s ability to meet the needs of the population. The Center held the responsibility for the lives of the sick to the occupation authorities consistent with international law in that it is the occupying power, and it is their responsibility to provide and facilitate the passage of services.
The Center reviewed in its testimony the suffering of Palestinian fishermen and farmers in the Gaza Strip as a result of the continued restrictions imposed on their movement on land and sea, and their targeting by the occupation forces in an organized manner.
He pointed out that during the same period, fishermen were subjected to 290 violations by the Israeli occupation forces, which resulted in the injury of 12 fishermen, including a child, and arrested 15 fishermen among the total detainees arbitrarily, including 3 children, and that these forces seized 5 fishing boats, and vandalized Fishing boats and gear such as nets and lighting for fishing boats in 13 cases.
In the restricted access areas by road, the center documented 492 violations, killing one citizen and wounding 10 others, including 3 children and a woman.
Absence of stalking
Al-Madhoun stressed, in the testimony he presented on behalf of the Al-Mizan Center, that the continued immunity and the absence of persecution for the grave violations committed by the Israeli occupation forces in the occupied Palestinian territories was and remains one of the most prominent challenges facing the human rights situation, as it contributed and continues to escalate Israel´s violations Its permanent analysis is one of its simplest obligations under international law.
At the end of his testimony, he noted that the Al-Mezan Center will send a set of documents - issued by it - which surround the human rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territories and in the Gaza Strip in particular, which may assist the committee in its mission.
