Keeping human rights vigorous in Israel


December 11, 2017
Sarah Benton

1) Statement and article by Gisha, 2) Haaretz article, 3) statement by Adalah

An hour’s drive that took 12 years

Gisha
December 10, 2017

A family exiting the Gaza Strip. Photo by Gisha.

To mark Human Rights Day, we share the story of one of our clients, unique and personal but also profoundly indicative of the daily reality shared by millions of Palestinians living under Israel’s control.

Samar is a Palestinian woman who was born and raised in the Gaza Strip, where her family live to this day. In 2001, she married a resident of the West Bank and moved to live with him there. She submitted an application to record her change of address in the Israeli-controlled Palestinian population registry, but given that Israel had stopped updating address changes in the year 2000, on paper, she remained registered as a “Gaza resident.” For this reason, her presence in the West Bank went unrecognized and if caught, she would be considered residing there “illegally.” This fact barred her from submitting travel permit applications to Israeli authorities and effectively imprisoned her in the West Bank.

It was only ten years later that Samar’s change of residence was finally approved by Israel, as part of a political gesture to the Palestinian Authority. She could, for the first time, dream of applying for a permit to visit her family in Gaza. The catch, now that the closure had been tightened further still, was that it could only be for what Israel considered “humanitarian reasons” – the wedding or funeral of a first-degree relative, or a severe life-threatening illness of a close family member.

In 2012, Samar contacted Gisha, requesting our assistance with a permit application to visit Gaza, following her father’s hospitalization. Gisha submitted an application on her behalf, which was refused by Israel because her father’s illness “did not constitute distinct humanitarian grounds” to approve the application seeing as “the hospitalization is not long-term.”

In 2013, Samar took her three children on a long, arduous journey through Jordan and Egypt, and finally managed to enter Gaza via Rafah Crossing. This was the first time in 12 years that she was reunited with her family, and the first time her children had ever met them. Their departure through Rafah on an equally grueling journey back to their home in the West Bank took place on one of the very last days of Rafah Crossing’s regular opening, which ended with the change in leadership in Egypt.

Since then, Samar submitted numerous applications for permits to see her family once more and waited with growing impatience for so much as a response from Israeli authorities, but to no avail. It was only in early 2017, when her mother had fallen ill and was hospitalized, that she found herself eligible in the eyes of Israel to apply for a permit to enter Gaza. With the help of Gisha, Samar’s application to visit her ailing mother in the Strip was approved, granting her a one-week long visit.

Gisha Intake Coordinator Omnia Zoubi remembers clearly the phone call she received from Samar once she had at long last arrived in Gaza, and the frail, but impassioned voice of her mother copiously thanking Omnia for helping to bring her beloved daughter to see her. Samar describes her week-long visit with her ailing mother as “nothing short of a miracle.”

Six months later, Samar contacted Gisha once more, asking for another opportunity to see her mother, whose medical condition had since critically deteriorated. When her permit application was approved and she reached Gaza, her mother was already in a comatose state and she passed away within days of Samar’s rushed arrival.

“It’s inconceivable that a mother and daughter living an hour’s drive from one another can only dream of seeing each other in such dire circumstances,” says Omnia. “It’s easier to get to the other side of the earth than the other part of the Palestinian territory.” In a recent phone conversation with Omnia, Samar told her: “I couldn’t believe it when I finally received the permit to enter Gaza earlier this year. It was my new year’s gift, the greatest I could have hoped for. The best thing that happened to me in 2017 was that I got to see my mother. The worst thing that happened is that I lost her.”

For Palestinians, residents of Gaza and the West Bank, the right to freedom of movement, and with it their access to family life, medical care, education, and livelihoods are far from a reality that can be taken for granted. On International Human Rights Day and every other day we are reminded that the harmful policies that are part and parcel of the occupation and relentlessly present in the lives of Palestinians must end.


 


Women volunteers from B’Tselem’s ‘Armed with Cameras’ project, in 2012. Photo by Helen Yanovski

On Eve of Netanyahu Visit, EU to Mark Human Rights Day With Anti-occupation Group B’Tselem

In slap to Netanyahu, incoming EU ambassador chooses to hold official event with human rights group ■ Foreign Ministry says move is like ‘spitting in the face of Israelis,’ while minister blasts EU as increasingly irrelevant

By Noa Landau, Haaretz premium
December 04, 2017 

Representatives of the European Union in Israel will mark International Human Rights Day on Thursday together with the human rights organization B’Tselem. The event, led by incoming EU Ambassador Emanuele Giaufret, will feature an exhibition of photographs marking 50 years of Israeli occupation and has sparked a fierce condemnation from Israel.

The exhibition, entitled “50 Years,” is currently on display at the Jaffa Port in Tel Aviv. It features portraits of 50 Palestinians born in 1967, the year that Israel took over the West Bank and Gaza after the Six-Day War. The event is expected to be attended by other foreign diplomats in Israel as well.


MK Rachel Azaria and new EU Ambassador to Israel, Emanuele Giaufret at the EU-IASEI [The Israeli Association for the Study of European Integration] Annual Conference.

Early next week, Netanyahu will fly to Brussels for a rare meeting with the 28 foreign ministers of the EU member nations.

In a departure from protocol, Netanyahu was invited not through the usual official channels, but through Lithuania’s representatives to the EU, a relatively friendly nation from Netanyahu’s perspective. The bypass of protocol has peeved the foreign minister of the EU, Federica Mogherini.

The spokesman for Israel’s Foreign Ministry, Emmanuel Nahshon, stated,

“For reasons unknown, the EU people believe that the way to Israelis’ hearts is by spitting in their faces. We are again seeing the same patronizing approach of preaching hypocritical, condescending morality, that just pushes away rather than bringing closer. It is sad and superfluous.”

Israeli officials and politicians fumed at the news. Naftali Bennett, the leader of Habayit Heyehudi party, said,

“The European Union loses no opportunity to needle the State of Israel and persists in its unilateral ways. This attitude makes the EU a less relevant player by the day.”

Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely commented that Israel has “been threatend by Palestinian terror for over 100 years” and that “unfortunately, the EU has not investigated the Palestinian Authority’s education system, which raises children to be ready to kill innocent civilians.” She further added that “whoever wants to look into human rights should begin with the Palestinian education system.”

B’Tselem responded, saying they have invited Bennet, Hotovely, and Nahshon to the exhibition, “so that they can have a firsthand look at the children of 1967– who have been deprived of their human rights by Israel.”

In late April, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cancelled a scheduled meeting with German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel for refusing Netanyahu’s demand that he not meet with two human rights nongovernmental organizations, Breaking the Silence and B’Tselem.

Netanyahu’s bureau stated at the time that the prime minister’s policy is to not meet with diplomats who visit Israel and meet organizations “that slander [Israel Defence Forces] soldiers and seek to prosecute them as war criminals.”

In February, Netanyahu ordered the Foreign Ministry to reprimand Belgium’s ambassador to Israel after Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel met with representatives from B’Tselem and Breaking the Silence. Netanyahu’s bureau stated at the time that “Israel sees gravely the meeting of the Belgian prime minister today with the heads of Breaking the Silence and B’Tselem during his visit to Israel.”

The same month Netanyahu visited London and asked Prime Minister Theresa May to stop funding left-wing Israeli organizations, including Breaking the Silence, B’Tselem, Adalah – The Legal Centre for Arab Minority Rights in Israel and others.

In the past Netanyahu has also ordered the abolition of  the posts at B’Tselem reserved for young Israelis who do voluntary national service as an alternative to enlisting in the army.

This is not the first time the EU has lent public support to the organization, despite the disapproval of the Israeli government. In October 2016, the EU delegation to Israel openly supported an appearance by B’Tselem executive director Hagai El-Ad before a special session of the UN Security Council on the settlements, tweeting “We support B’Tselem to maintain human rights of vulnerable Palestinian communities in Area C.”

 


How the Israeli Knesset “protects” human rights

Statement, Adalah, by email

December 10, 2017

 

As we mark the 70th annual International Human Rights Day on 10 December, Israel’s parliament continues to violate the rights of Palestinians in Israel and in the OPT.

In 2017, the Knesset promoted discriminatory and anti-democratic legislation threatening land rights, freedom of expression rights, and civil and political rights. And we’ve witnessed a further erosion of the rule of law: The Knesset legislated de facto annexation of settlements in the OPT over which it has no jurisdiction; the Israel Prison Service barred lawyers from visiting prisoners on hunger-strike breaching their right to legal counsel; and police illegally held the bodies of Palestinians killed by Israeli security forces from their families.

CLICK FOR VIDEO: What are Israel’s political leaders doing to “protect” the human rights of Palestinians?

In Arabic with English subtitles

As we approach 2018, Adalah needs your support to challenge the most pressing Israeli violations of Palestinian rights:

  • Revocation of citizenship as a punitive measure
  • Forced displacement
  • Settlements and proposed “annexation laws”
  • Lack of accountability for killings by Israeli security forces
  • Cuts to social benefits and healthcare services

Israel continues to impose restrictions on human rights defenders fighting to end the occupation and for full equality and a state for all of its citizens. Your contribution during this holiday season is more important than ever.

Stand with Adalah, Stand for Justice

CLICK HERE to watch a video about the Knesset and human rights
CLICK HERE for more about Adalah’s key human rights concerns, pdf file

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