HRW: «Israel» Action in Al-Quds Are War Crimes

Local Editor

Human Rights Watch warned that stripping some 15,000 Palestinians of their right to live in al-Quds [Jerusalem] since 1967 could amount to a "war crime."

"‘Israel' claims to treat [occupied] Jerusalem [al-Quds] as a unified city, but the reality is effectively one set of rules for Jews and another for Palestinians," said the international right group's Middle East director, Sarah Leah Whitson, in a report published on Tuesday.

From June 5 to 10, 1967, the Six-Day War was fought between the "Israeli" entity's regime on one side and Egypt, Jordan, and Syria on the other. At the end of that war, the entity occupied the West Bank, East al-Quds, the Gaza Strip, and parts of the Syrian Golan Heights. The "Israeli" entity later withdrew from Gaza but laid a siege on it. The war and the entity's ensuing land seizure displaced hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and Syrians.

Since then, 14,595 Palestinians had had their residence status revoked, a move which effectively stops them from remaining in the city of their birth, said Whitson.

"Residency revocations often effectively force Palestinians from [occupied] east Jerusalem [al-Quds], who are protected by virtue of ‘Israel's' occupation under the Fourth Geneva Convention, to leave the territory they live in," she added.

The "Israeli" entity is required to withdraw from all the territories seized in the war under the United Nations Security Council Resolution 242, adopted months after the Six-Day War, in November 1967; but the Tel Aviv regime has been in non-compliance of that piece of international law ever since.

"Deportation or forced transfers of any part of the population of an occupied territory could amount to war crimes," she noted.

The report came just a few days after an "Israeli" court decided to revoke the citizenship of a young Arab- man over his purported involvement in an operation against "Israeli" troops in the northern occupied territories two years ago.

HRW's director for the occupied Palestinian territories, Omar Shakir, said that revoking Zayoud's nationality "would render him stateless, in violation of ‘Israel's' obligations under international human rights law".

About 1.4 million 1948 Palestinians, making up some 18 percent of the entity's population, live within the occupied territories. They are the descendants of Palestinians who remained on their land even after the creation of the Zionist regime in 1948.

The occupied Palestinian territories had witnessed new tensions ever since "Israeli" Occupation Forces introduced restrictions on the entry of Palestinian worshipers into al-Aqsa Mosque compound in East al-Quds in August 2015. More than 300 Palestinians had lost their lives at the hands of IOF in the ongoing tensions since the beginning of October 2015.

israel | palestine | al quds

Source: Press TV, Edited by website team