Photo:autsaider.org
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| Al-Aqsa Intifada enters sixth year
This report coincides with the 5th anniversary of the eruption of the al-Aqsa Intifada, which broke out following the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon?s provocative visit to al-Aqsa Mosque (the Holy Sanctuary) in occupied Jerusalem, which provoked outrage among Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims around the world. Over the last 5 years, Israeli occupying troops have perpetrated grave breaches of international law against Palestinian civilians, in a manner unprecedented since 1967.
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The first and second year of the Intifada witnessed an increasing escalation in Israeli war crimes, when Israeli troops seized control over some towns in the West Bank, as the international community remained silent and the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 failed to meet their obligations to ensure respect for the Convention in the occupied Palestinian Territory (OPTs) and provide protection for Palestinian civilians.
The international silence and the backing by the US government has served to encourage the Israeli government and its occupying troops to escalate the number of attacks against Palestinian civilians, while acting with impunity.
The fourth year of the al-Aqsa Intifada witnessed an unprecedented escalation in violations of human rights perpetrated by Israeli occupying troops against Palestinian civilians, especially in the Gaza Strip, which was subject to wide scale offensives, such as the offensive on the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanoun and the offensive on the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah.
In Rafah, Israeli occupying forces launched a fierce offensive against the town and its refugee camp. They used excessive force against Palestinian civilians, killing dozens. They also destroyed hundreds of Palestinian houses, leaving hundreds of Palestinian families homeless. Israeli troops destroyed large areas of agricultural land and dozens of economic facilities.
In the fourth year of the Intifada, Israeli troops continued to shell Palestinian residential areas. Four Palestinian schoolchildren were either killed or injured while sitting at their desks at schools. Israeli troops also committed most of the extra-judicial executions inside densely populated areas, which caused many casualties among Palestinian civilians, especially children.
In the West Bank, Israeli occupying troops continued to construct the apartheid wall inside the West Bank territory, in violation of international human rights law and international humanitarian law, and the advisory opinion issued by the International Court of Justice in Hague, which considered the construction of the wall illegal and called for its dismantlement.
The fifth year started with the Palestinian presidential elections, held on January 9, and Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) was elected as the president of the PA. Although Abbas called the resistance groups to halt attacks against Israel, he promised them he'll protect them from Israeli incursions and will not force them to disarm.
However, the violence on both sides continued peaking in Ariel Sharon's move to freeze all diplomatic and security contacts with the Palestinian Authority. Spokesman Assaf Shariv declared that "Israel informed international leaders today that there will be no meetings with Abbas until he makes a real effort to stop the terror".
At the Sharm al-Sheikh summit Israel said it would release hundreds of Palestinian political prisoners as a "goodwill gesture" Abbas entered talks with the leaders of the Islamic Jihad and the Hamas, for them to rally behind him and respect the truce. Ismail Haniyah, a senior leader of the group Hamas said that "its position regarding calm will continue unchanged and Israel will bear responsibility for any new violation or aggression".
Israel continued building the apartheid wall, annexing 12% of the West Bank territory to Israel, and ignored the IJC ruling,as well as "legitimizing" the Wall by the Israeli High court of Justice.
The "disengagement plan" (unveiled by Sharon in December 2003) was carried out and the evacuation of all illegal Israeli colonies from the Occupied Gaza Strip (with a total settler population of 7,300) and four small colonies in the northern Occupied West Bank (with a total settler population of 475). Yet, Israel retains complete control over the Palestinian airspace and water space. Israel has also reserved itself the right to re invade the Occupied Gaza Strip at will thereby ensuring its military control over the area. In effect, what Israel aims to isolate the Occupied Gaza Strip and cut it off from the rest of the world.
Some positive development on the international stage were the filed law suits against Israeli army officers in the UK, releasing warrants for alleged war crimes in occupied Palestinian lands. Under these laws, the UK has the power to bring charges relating to such crimes against a foreign subject if the legal system in the subject's country of origin is unable or unwilling to handle such complaints.
By the end of the fifth year of the al-Aqsa Intifada, 3708* Palestinians, have been killed by Israeli occupying troops. 144 Palestinians were killed in the 5 th year of the Intifada which is a drastic decrease compared to 2004 (656 deaths).
Graph: PRCS
Among the victims were prominent political figures of Palestinian resistance groups ,following Sharon's policy to prevent Hamas from participating in the legislative council elections, while criticising Abu Mazen for not cracking down on ?terror? and using the excuse of having ?no partner for peace? as a ploy to further expand settlements, the Apartheid Wall, and to impose greater restrictions on Palestinian life in the West Bank, and East Jerusalem.
Israeli military actions have violated the political, civil, economic, social and cultural rights of Palestinian civilians. The five years of the al-Aqsa Intifada have been characterized by the following Israeli military attacks:
- Prolonged incursions and redeployment into Palestinian Authority controlled areas;
- Massive numbers of killings and destruction of homes and civilian property;
- Extra-judicial killings against Palestinian activists and political leaders
- Further crushing of the Palestinian economy and the structure of the Palestinian Authority through the destruction of civil and security facilities;
- Using Palestinian civilians as human shields during military operations in the OPTs;
- Collective punishment measures against the families of Palestinians who carried out, planned or facilitated attacks against Israeli targets, including arrests, expulsion to the Gaza Strip of these families and destruction of their houses;
- Continued construction of the apartheid wall inside the West Bank territory,
- Willful killing of Palestinian civilians;
- Indiscriminate shelling of Palestinian civilian residential areas using various forms of weaponry, including warplanes, tanks and machine guns;
- Collective punishment of Palestinian civilians, denying them their basic human rights, including the rights of health, education, freedom of movement and work, through the imposition of a tightened siege on the OPTs;
- Arbitrary arrests and placing Palestinians in administrative detention.
After five years of the Palestinian people's uprising against the illegal Israeli occupation, all signs indicate that the struggle for freedom is far from over.
The latest numbers of deaths from Sept 2000 until Sept 2005 indicate that the Intifada killed approximately 4700 people on both sides.
| Population | Citizens Killed* | | Israel | 6,276,883 | 974 | | Palestine | 3,761,904 | 3,708 |
*If you do a research through different website resources, you'll find out that the results differ widely. The above numbers do not include Palestinian suicide bombers (or other attackers), nor do they include Palestinians targeted for assassination, though bystanders killed during these assassinations are counted. However, Israeli soldiers killed during incursions into Palestinian lands are counted. The data used here is collected from B'tselem, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, and the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
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