Expropriation of Palestinian Lands by the Israeli Occupation Authorities
The Israeli settlement project in the occupied West Bank lands was aimed to establish a “settler’s state” in contravention of international covenants, as “The Green Line” divided Palestine into a state for Israel and another for the Palestinians on the borders of June 4, 1967.
We issued a report detailing the Israeli decades-long violations and crimes committed against the Palestinians, which amount to crimes against humanity under international law.
According to the Apartheid Convention and the Rome Statute, these crimes included inhumane acts such as “forced deportations,” “expropriation of real estate,”, “the creation of segregated detention centers and ghettos”, depriving people of “the right to leave the homeland and return to it, and the right to acquire a nationality.”
Over the past 54 years, the Israeli authorities have facilitated the transfer of Israeli Jews to the Occupied Palestinian Territories, while granting them a higher status over Palestinians living in the same areas in terms of civil rights, access to land, freedom of movement, and construction, as well as the granting of residency rights to relatives.
Israel has also demolished and destroyed tens of thousands of Palestinian homes, forcibly displacing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes, forcing many families to leave their homes or lands in order to evacuate these areas to establish settlements.
In the West Bank, the occupation authorities confiscated more than two million dunams of Palestinians’ lands; a third of the West Bank, of which tens of thousands of dunams are private property belonging to the Palestinians, however, the occupation controlled it as “state lands.”
The ongoing violations against the Palestinians are a blatant violation of international law and a war crime. Nevertheless, the Israeli occupation continues its policy of seizing and annexing Palestinian lands, despite international criticism.
The Global Rights Watch invites you to attend an online seminar on the criminal practices of the Israeli authorities against the Palestinian people and their violation of human rights.
Experts, human rights advocates, and human rights activists will be highlighting these violations while addressing the possible legal means to pressure the occupation authorities to end its violations and stop the confiscation of Palestinian lands.
Speakers:
- Attorney Ayed Murar, The Wall and Settlements Resistance Commission,
- Attorney Bassam Karajeh, director of the legal unit at the Jerusalem Center for Legal Aid and Human Rights.
- Lawyer Issam Al-Arouri, Director of Al-Quds Center for Legal Aid
Date and Time:
The seminar will be held on Monday, February 21, 2022, from 18:00 -19:00, Beirut time
Join Zoom meeting:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85809216298?pwd=SDBXd1lQeHA0blhuU29HdEI2VTdFdz09
Discussion Topics:
- The methods used by the Israeli authorities to seize Palestinian lands, and the size of lands confiscated since the Oslo Accords. The implications of confiscating Palestinian lands and means of ending them. (Lawyer Ayed Murar).
- The outright denial of building permits in large parts of the West Bank has forced thousands of Palestinians to leave their homes in what is considered as forcible displacement.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and their relatives were deprived of residency rights, under the pretext of being abroad at the beginning of the occupation in 1967.
The dangers and repercussions of these measures and the means of dealing with them. (Lawyer Bassam Karajeh).
- Over the decades, numerous UN resolutions have emphasised that Israeli settlements are a violation of international law. How do the Palestinians face these crimes based on the UN resolutions that criminalise the confiscation of land?
What are the strategies used to resist the Israeli theft of land, especially in Jerusalem and its suburbs? And what are the repercussions of confiscating homes on Jerusalemites and Palestinians within the 48 lands. (Attorney Issam Al-Arouri)
