The Palestinians are struggling for survival under the Israeli occupation while the world remains mum over Israel’s unabated terrorism B’Tselem has warned.
Addressing the United Nations Security Council on 18 Oct. 2018 head of B’Tselem Hagai El-Ad said: “It is very difficult if not impossible to fully convey the indignity the outrage and the pain of a people denied the benefit of human rights for more than fifty years. Here in these chambers it is hard to articulate the flesh and blood meaning of the exposed lives Palestinians endure under occupation” said Hagai.
“But no matter how hard it is to describe the real hardship is that of facing such an intolerable existence day in and day out of trying to live and raise a family and develop a community under these conditions” he stated.
“It has been almost two years to the day since I last had the honor of speaking before the Council. Two more years of occupation two years in which the routine of the first 49 years of occupation continued. Since I last spoke here 317 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli security forces” added Hagai.
“Israel has demolished 294 Palestinian homes and has continued making arrests on a daily basis including of minors; Israeli settlers have vandalized and uprooted thousands of olive trees and grapevines; Israeli security forces have continued to regularly enter Palestinians houses sometimes coming in the dead of night to wake children register their names and take their pictures; Palestinians have lost countless hours waiting at checkpoints with no explanation. And so the routine of the occupation marches on.”
“All this is often referred to as ‘the status quo.’ Yet there is nothing static about this reality. It is a calculated and deliberate process of slowly splitting up an entire people fragmenting their land and disrupting their lives: separating Gaza from the West Bank breaking up the West Bank into small enclaves and walling off East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank.”
“Eventually what remains are isolated bits the easier to oppress: a family slated for eviction in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan; a community such as ‘Urif south of Nablus trying against all odds to hold on to its land and farm it in the face of Israel’s long arm of unchecked settler violence; or Area A of the West Bank conveniently said to be “under full Palestinian control” but in fact essentially large Bantustans slowly but surely being hemmed in by ever more new or expanding Israeli settlements” Hagai’s address read.
“None of this is random. All of it is policy-driven. Two of the latest and most conspicuous examples are Israel’s conduct in the recent protests in Gaza and its plans for Khan al-Ahmar a Palestinian shepherding community. Some 200 people live in Khan al-Ahmar just a few kilometers east of Jerusalem in an area where Israel has long endeavored to minimize Palestinian presence and expand settlements.”
“For one thing there’s no argument that the homes were built without permission from the Israeli authorities. But this is the case not because Palestinians are inherently law-breakers as some in Israel suggest. Rather it is because they have no other alternative. It is all but impossible for Palestinians to obtain building permits from the Israeli authorities because the Israeli-established planning regime in the West Bank is meant by design to serve settlers and dispossess Palestinians” stated Hagai.
“Secondly the government failed to mention that the two relocation sites it so generously offered leave something to be desired: one is beside a garbage dump and the other next to a wastewater treatment facility. Moreover relocation would completely undermine the community’s ability to make a living.”
“The Gaza Strip with a population of nearly two million has essentially become an open-air prison. Its inmates have been staging protests for the past six months after suffering for more than a decade under an Israeli-imposed blockade that has led to economic collapse soaring unemployment rates polluted drinking water and dwindling power supplies and ultimately to deep despair.”
“Since March 30 more than five thousand Palestinians have been injured by live Israeli gunfire and more than 170 killed – including at least 31 minors. The youngest were just little boys. Majdi a-Satari Yasser Abu a-Naja and Naser Musbeh were just eleven years old when they were killed” B’Tselem’s head warned.
“As long as this methodical relentless process doesn’t trigger international outrage and international action Israel can successfully continue to carry off this contradiction in terms: oppressing millions while somehow still being considered a ‘democracy.’”
“Take a look at the discriminatory planning mechanisms and the separate legal systems in the occupied territories. They are reminiscent of South Africa’s grand apartheid.”
“I am not a traitor nor am I a hero. The heroes are the Palestinians who endure this occupation with courage and perseverance; who wake up in the middle of the night to find soldiers barging into their homes; who know that if a loved one is killed impunity is all but guaranteed to the perpetrators; who stay on their land knowing that it is only a matter of time before the bulldozers arrive”
“We reject the occupation. We reject it because the current reality is wholly and utterly incompatible with what is right and what is just. It is a reality wholly and utterly incompatible with a life of freedom and dignity for all 13 million people – both Israeli and Palestinian – living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. And that is the future we strive for.”
“The world must let Israel know that it will no longer stand idly by that it will take action against the continued dismantling of the Palestinian people” vowed Hagai.
