The Hamas Movement has welcomed UN special rapporteur Michael Lynk’s recent report that accuses Israel of committing “apartheid” against the Palestinian people.
In a statement on Thursday Hamas spokesman Jihad Taha valued Lynk’s call on the international community to take immediate measures to help end Israel’s apartheid and protect the Palestinian people’s rights.
Spokesman Taha said his Movement considers the report “a new and important addition to a series of positions and reports already issued by international human rights organizations” especially Amnesty International’s last report that documented Israeli crimes and violations against the Palestinian people their land and holy sites.
He reiterated his Movement’s call upon the UN and the international community to take effective action and deterrent measures against the Israeli occupation state to activate the procedures for prosecuting its leaders and settlers for their crimes and to work on achieving justice for the Palestinian people and help them restore their legitimate rights.
Special Rapporteur on human rights Michael Lynk submitted a report last Tuesday to the UN Human Rights Council concluding that the situation in the occupied Palestinian territories amounts to apartheid.
Amnesty International also hailed the report and described Lynk’s findings as “an important and timely addition to the growing international consensus that Israeli authorities are committing apartheid against the Palestinian people.”
“The report details how Israel has established a system of racially motivated oppression against Palestinians explicitly designed to maintain Jewish Israeli domination and maintained through the commission of grave human rights violations” Saleh Higazi deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International said.
“Palestinian human rights organizations have been calling the situation apartheid for years and this report is a landmark moment of recognition of the lived reality of millions of Palestinians. Like Amnesty International and many other human rights groups the Special Rapporteur examined Israel’s treatment of Palestinians through the lens of international law and reached the unmistakable conclusion that this is apartheid” Higazi added in a statement published on Amnesty’s website.
“The report emphasizes the need for the international community to accept the findings of human rights organizations including Amnesty and start calling Israel’s apartheid what it is. The international community in particular countries allied to Israel must stop making excuses for this cruel system of racial domination and oppression and take immediate action to help end apartheid and protect Palestinian rights” he underscored.
