2023-07-05 20:30:51
Two independent UN experts said on Wednesday that Israeli “air strikes and ground operations” against the Palestinian refugee camp in Jenin bore “primary evidence of a war crime”.
Published on: 07/05/2023 – 20:30
These “were the deadliest attacks in the West Bank since the destruction of the Jenin camp in 2002,” the two UN rapporteurs said in a statement. Their mandate is set by the Human Rights Council, but they do not speak for the organization.
“Operations by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank, which kill and seriously injure the occupied population, destroy their homes and infrastructure, and arbitrarily displace thousands of people, constitute flagrant violations of international law and rules relating to the use of force and may constitute a crime. war,” they said.
On Wednesday, the Israeli army announced the end of its military operation in the occupied West Bank, in which 12 Palestinians and an Israeli soldier were killed.
The operation, which began on Monday and was the biggest in the West Bank for years, deployed hundreds of soldiers, drones and army bulldozers in the city of Jenin and the adjacent refugee camp, a stronghold of Palestinian armed groups.
About 4,000 Palestinians fled the Jenin camp on Monday night after the deadly air strikes, according to the rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, Francesca Albanese, and the rapporteur for the human rights of internally displaced persons, Paula Gaviria Betancur.
increase in violence
According to experts, the Israeli attacks are not based on international law and “constitute collective punishment of the Palestinian population”.
“Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territory are persons protected by international law, with the guarantee of all human rights, including the presumption of innocence”, they emphasized, assuring that “they cannot be treated by the occupying power as a threat to collective security”.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has seen a sharp increase in tensions after the inauguration, at the end of December, of one of the most conservative governments in Israel’s history, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
In the northern West Bank, violence has increased with a recent spate of attacks on Israelis and anti-Palestinian violence by Jewish settlers. Since the beginning of the year, at least 190 Palestinians have been killed and 26 Israelis.
The Jenin camp, a “nest of terrorism”
The choice of the Jenin refugee camp as a target is, according to Israel, strategic in the fight against “Palestinian terrorism”.
Located in the extreme north of the West Bank, in a mountainous region close to the border with Israel, Jenin has a large refugee camp. It is home to about 18,000 of the 760,000 Palestinians who fled or were forced from their homes when the State of Israel was created in 1948, what Palestinians call the “Nakba”, or “catastrophe”.
In recent years, the camp has been a frequent scene of fighting between Israel and armed Palestinian groups, to the point that, for Israel, it has become synonymous with the Palestinian struggle against the Jewish state and a “terrorist center”.
In 2002, during the second intifada launched after the collapse of US-supervised peace talks, Israel besieged the camp for over a month during a military operation in the West Bank. Fifty-two Palestinians and 23 Israeli soldiers were killed in the fighting. More than 400 homes were destroyed, according to the United Nations Agency for Palestinian Refugees (Unrwa), and more than a quarter of the population was left homeless.
Israel warns of a growing number of armed men in Jenin and talks about the presence of important ammunition stocks. According to the Hebrew state, the city serves as a command and preparation center for Palestinian attacks, as well as providing a safe haven for fighters financed by Hamas or Islamic Jihad.
According to Israel, more than 50 armed attacks have been carried out since the beginning of 2023 by men from Jenin, and more than half of the local population is affiliated with one of the Palestinian armed movements.
(With information from AFP and Reuters)
#rapporteurs #point #evidence #war #crime #Israeli #attack #West #Bank