Israel turning Palestinian territories into ‘open-air prison’ says UN expert
A Palestinian teacher opens an iron door controlled by Israeli forces in the West Bank city of Hebron on 13 February 2019
Middle East Eye reports on 12 July 2023:
The Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories has turned the West Bank into an open-air prison for Palestinians, the UN special rapporteur on the Palestinian territories has said in a new report [Human Rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories 9 June 2023].
The report states that since 1967, more than 800,000 Palestinians have been arrested by Israeli forces, and many have faced long detentions and are “often presumed guilty without evidence”.
“All the more, as these offences appear to be part of a plan to de-Palestinianise the territory. This threatens the existence of the Palestinian people as a national cohesive group. It is critical that the international community recognises the illegality of the Israeli occupation,” Albanese told the Human Rights Council during a session on Monday.
While Gaza has often been referred to as an “open-air prison” because of the blockade it has faced since 2007, Albanese has extended this language to include more Palestinian territories, including the occupied West Bank. “This wider carcerality, made of an array of laws, procedures and techniques of coercive confinement, transforms the occupied Palestinian territory into a constantly surveilled open-air panopticon,” Albanese said in the report.
The special rapporteur also noted that the “presence of illegal colonies” made up of Israeli settlers has further restricted Palestinians’ freedom of movement and increased the surveillance apparatus around them. “Through an array of physical, bureaucratic, and digital mechanisms, the Israeli regime has turned the occupied territory into a ‘panopticon’, where Palestinians are constantly surveilled and disciplined,” she said in her report.
There are approximately 5,000 Palestinian political prisoners currently in Israeli prisons, according to the rights group, Addameer. Albanese called on Israel to release all Palestinian minors, as well as all Palestinian detainees that are being held “for acts devoid of offensiveness under international law”.
Albanese said the use of arbitrary arrests and administrative detention – arrest without trial or charge for indefinite amounts of time – are some of the pillars of Israel’s apartheid system.
She also called on Israel to release the bodies of dead Palestinians and guarantee they receive “dignified burials”.
Since assuming her role in April 2022, Albanese has been critical of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and has said Israel is guilty of the crime of apartheid and operating as a settler colonial state. At the same time, she has faced a campaign from Israeli right-wing groups calling for her removal from her UN post.
Israeli settlement expansion
Israeli violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank has heightened over the past few months, culminating in an Israeli military operation in the city of Jenin that killed 12 Palestinians and left scores of others wounded.