The Human Rights Watch (HRW) accused the Israeli authorities on Monday of barring its employees working in documenting human rights violations from travelling into and out of the Gaza Strip.
The international organization said in a statement that these Israeli restrictions raise doubts about the Israeli military authorities’ allegations that they rely on human rights organizations as an important source of information in their criminal investigations into possible war crimes committed in the 2014 war against Gaza.
The statement followed a report issued by the organization accusing Israel of systematically blocking human rights workers from entering or leaving the Gaza Strip even in the absence of any security claim against them.
The HRW also accused Egypt of imposing strict travel restrictions on its border with Gaza calling on the International Criminal Court’s office to take into consideration these restrictions in the context of its preliminary examination of the situation in the Palestinian territories.
Since 2008 the HRW has obtained only one permission to bring foreign staff into Gaza though Israel in a visit in September 2016 which was described by the Israeli authorities as exceptional.
The HRW demanded the Israeli authorities to end this blanket travel ban and allow all Palestinians to enter and leave Gaza freely.
For his part the director of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights Raji al-Sourani said that the HRW’s report reflects the current situation of the movement of human rights workers in the Palestinian territories which has been disrupted to a large extent.
According to Quds Press news agency Sourani affirmed that Israel “hinders access to justice” by restricting the movement of human rights workers adding that such restrictions led to freezing most of the international organizations’ activities in the Gaza Strip.
The Palestinian activist pointed out that four human rights organizations have presented a legal memorandum to the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor who was prevented from entering the Gaza Strip to conduct the necessary investigations.
Israel imposed a blockade on the Gazan citizens after Hamas Movement won the legislative elections in January 2006 and tightened it in mid-June in 2007.
The Egyptian authorities have been closing the Rafah crossing which links between the Gaza Strip and the Egyptian territories almost completely since 2013 for “security reasons”. The crossing is opened at spaced intervals to allow humanitarian cases to travel.
