Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories

By Laith Abu Zeyad, Amnesty International campaigner on Israel/ Palestine

On June 20, World Refugee Day, TripAdvisor CEO Stephen Kaufer published an op-ed urging businesses to help address the global refugee crisis and pledging to donate millions of dollars to humanitarian organisations "to support and help refugees rebuild their lives and reclaim their futures".

This is, of course, a commendable initiative, if only it did not contradict in spirit other practices of the company. While TripAdvisor has decided to help refugees in certain parts of the world, elsewhere - namely in the occupied Palestinian territories - it is contributing to the suffering of the local population, which itself is the source of one of the world's largest refugee communities.

Amnesty International has joined a legal case brought by Human Rights Watch (HRW) to challenge the legality of the Israeli government’s decision to revoke the work permit of its Israel and Palestine Director, the organization said today. is

A ruling by the Jerusalem District Court confirming the authorities’ decision to expel Omar Shakir is an unreasonable and disproportionate restriction on the rights to freedom of expression and association, Amnesty International is arguing in an amicus curia briefing submitted to the Israeli Supreme Court in Jerusalem today. The court is scheduled to hear the case on 25 July 2019.

“The Israeli authorities’ decision to deport Omar Shakir is a crushing blow to freedom of expression in the country and sends an alarming signal to human rights activists and civil society in general of the extent they are willing to go in their attempt to silence those who defend human rights.” said Saleh Higazi, Deputy Middle East and North Africa Director at Amnesty International.

June 2019 marks the 52nd anniversary of Israel’s capture of the West Bank and Gaza Strip during a war with its neighbours, and the beginning of its occupation of Palestinian territory. Today, over 600,000 Jewish-Israeli settlers are living on occupied Palestinian land and are afforded protections and benefits, of which over 4.9 million Palestinians living in the same territory do not have access to. This is the direct result of a discriminatory system of laws and policies that ensure that Palestinians are not afforded the same rights or services as Israeli settlers.

For 52 years, hundreds of thousands of hectares of Palestinian land have been appropriated and exploited by Israel. For 52 years, tens of thousands of Palestinian homes and structures have been demolished in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), resulting in the displacement of thousands of Palestinians. The wanton destruction of property and the forcible transfer of civilians in the occupied territory are both war crimes under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. 

Danna Ingleton is Deputy Director of Amnesty Tech 

In June last year, one of my colleagues at Amnesty International received a WhatsApp message from an unknown number. It contained details about a protest supposedly taking place at the Saudi embassy in Washington DC, and my colleague was instantly suspicious. The message came at a time when Amnesty International was campaigning for the release of six jailed activists in Saudi Arabia, and something didn’t feel right.

An analysis of the links in the message proved these suspicions to be well-founded. Amnesty’s Tech team found that clicking the link would have secretly installed potent spyware on the phone, obtaining total access to calls, messages, photos and GPS location. A closer look enabled us to trace the attack back to a secretive Israeli company: NSO Group.

Amnesty International is supporting a legal action to take the Israeli Ministry of Defence (MoD) to court, to demand that it revokes the export license of NSO Group, an Israeli company whose spyware products have been used in chilling attacks on human rights defenders around the world.

In a petition to be filed tomorrow at the District Court of Tel Aviv, approximately 50 members and supporters of Amnesty International Israel and others from the human rights community set out how the MoD has put human rights at risk by allowing NSO to continue exporting its products. In August 2018 an Amnesty staff member was targeted by a particularly invasive piece of NSO Group software called Pegasus, also linked to attacks on activists and journalists in Saudi Arabia, Mexico and the United Arab Emirates.

“NSO Group sells its products to governments who are known for outrageous human rights abuses, giving them the tools to track activists and critics. The attack on Amnesty International was the final straw,” said Danna Ingleton, Deputy Director of Amnesty Tech, who has provided supporting testimony.

Responding to reports that at least seven people were injured after a rocket was fired from the Gaza Strip into Israel, Saleh Higazi, Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa, said:

“Amnesty International condemns the rocket attack from Gaza that hit a home in central Israel wounding Israeli civilians.

“Attacks on civilians, and indiscriminate attacks, are never justified and a serious violation of international humanitarian law. The threats from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to respond with further military action are also deeply worrying.

“Israel has repeatedly displayed a chilling disregard for civilian life and carried out wide-scale deadly attacks in densely-populated civilian areas of Gaza in violation of international humanitarian law.

“There must be no repeat of the unlawful attacks that killed and injured thousands of civilians in Gaza, destroyed homes and devastated infrastructure during conflicts in previous years.

“We are calling on Hamas, Israel and all parties involved in the conflict to respect international humanitarian law.”