Life Under Occupation

The Separation Wall

'The construction of the wall being built by Israel [is] contrary to international law. Israel is under obligation ...to dismantle forthwith the structure...[and] make reparation for all damage caused.' International Court of Justice, July 2004

Construction of the wall began on 16 June, 2002. The wall consists of a series of 25-foot-high concrete slabs, trenches, barbed wire 'buffer zones', electrified fencing, numerous watch towers, thermal imaging video cameras, sniper towers and roads for patrol vehicles.

It is not built along the border between Israel and the West Bank, nor does it consume any Israeli land.

Instead, it slices through the West Bank, capturing Palestinian land and resources, particularly precious water sources, and annexes them to the illegal settlements.

When completed, the 723km-long wall will encircle eight Palestinian communities on all four sides, with a tunnel or road connection to the rest of the West Bank, and 28 Palestinian communities on three sides.

Checkpoints

'The right to freedom of movement provides that people are entitled to move freely within the borders of the state, to leave any country and to return to their country'. Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 13)

74% of the main routes in the West Bank are controlled by Israeli checkpoints or blocked entirely.Palestinian movement is controlled and restricted through the use of trenches, checkpoints, earth walls, road blocks, road barriers, road gates, earth mounds and the Separation Wall.

Palestinians are prevented from travelling between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, cutting them off from friends and families.

Prisoners

'It would be better to drown these prisoners, in the Dead Sea if possible, since that's the lowest point in the world.' Avigdor Lieberman, Israeli foreign minister

There are between 9,500 and 10,500 Palestinians currently being illegally detained by Israel, the occupying power, including children as young as 12. Statistically, Palestinians are one of the most imprisoned people on earth.

Between September 2000 and August 2008, an estimated 6,700 Palestinian children were arrested and detained in Israeli prison facilities and tried in adult courts.

Arrests can happen anywhere, including checkpoints, but the majority happen at home, usually after midnight, with soliders frequently opening fire on the building before entering. Family members can be beaten. The person being arrested is usually beaten, sometimes stripped naked and then handcuffed with plastic ties before being taken away in a military jeep.

Detention can last for years without charge or trial, and many prisoners disappear into a black hole.

Torture, according to Israel's own security forces, is routine, and confessions are written out in Hebrew for the arrested Palestinians - most of whom know only Arabic - to sign.

The detention of prisoners inside Israel makes it difficult, if not impossible, for family members to visit. There is a blanket ban on entry into Israel for all Palestinian males aged between 16 and 40. Since 2007, all visits to prisoners taken from Gaza have been banned.

The transfer of Palestinian prisoners to Israeli territory is a breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention, as is the ban on family visits.

Since 2007, 45 MPs from the democratically elected Hamas party have been abducted and imprisoned, as part of Israel's sustained attempt to undermine Palestinian democracy. The spouses of political leaders have also been arrested and tortured.

Torture

'Israel is the sole country in the world to have legalised the use of torture.' B'Tselem (The Israeli Information Centre for Human Rights)

Since 1967, more than 105 documented torture techniques have been used by Israel, including on women. At least 66 Palestinians have been tortured to death. The majority (between 85 and 95%) of the 650,000+ Palestinians who have been arrested by Israel since 1967 have been subjected to torture.

Israel justifies torture by designating the Palestinian Territories as being under 'exceptional circumstances'.

This is in direct violation of the 1984 Convention Against Torture. Article 2 of the convention states: 'No exceptional circumstances whatsover...may be invoked as a justification of torture'.

Israel ratified the Treaty in 1991. Its torture techniques used against Palestinians include bending the prisoner's back into an arch and tying their hands to their feet and leaving them for hours or days in that position.

The Catastrophe

The creation of the State of Israel is known amongst Palestinians as Al Nakba (the Catastrophe).It is marked by Palestinians around the world on May 14 every year.

On May 14, 2009 a new law was proposed in Israel banning the commemoration of Al Nakba in that country.

Any member of Israel's Arab population - those who didn't flee their homes and villages in 1948, and their descendants - would be subject to three years' imprisonment if they broke the proposed new law.

The law would equally apply to Israeli Jews marking Al Nakba, and is therefore aimed at silencing their protest too.

The legislation has been proposed by the party of the right-wing foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman, whose other policy ideas include withdrawing citizenship from Israeli Arabs who don't swear an oath of loyalty to the Israeli state.

Israel's Arab citizens are restricted politically, limited in the jobs they can take and even in who they can marry. The number plates on their cars are a different colour to those of Israeli Jews, to mark them out from the Jewish population.

Writing in Jewish Peace News, Sarah Ann Minkin says of the Al Nakba proposal: 'This proposed law should set off anti-fascism alarms.

'...By forbidding the remembering of the Nakba, the law aims to erase the 1948 dispossession of Palestinians...even as this same political party's platform threatens another form of dispossession, that is, removing citizenship from Palestinian citizens .'

And so, in our converse, paradox world, it is Nakba Denial that will actually be within the law in Israel, while remembering those killed and dispossessed in the Zionist onslaught of 1948 will become punishable by three years in prison.

Sources: Palestine Monitor (Exposing Life Under Occupation)
Palestine Solidarity Campaign
Jewish Peace News

Link: The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions