From the beginning of the fake existence of the Israeli regime until now, more than a hundred thousand innocent people have been killed, and millions of people have been displaced. During these decades, the Palestinians and the defenseless people of Gaza, in addition to territorial occupation and murder, have also faced extensive sanctions and complete blockade. Today's conditions in the occupied territories are the result of more than seven decades of occupation and the killing of innocent people by the Zionist regime.
Since 1948, the Zionist regime has occupied more than 78% of the Palestinian lands and built 270 new settlements and 750 thousand Israeli houses. This is even though 531 Palestinian villages were demolished, more than half of the Palestinian people fled to other countries in and around 1948, and a quarter of those who remained in the same area were either displaced or had no right to return to their cities and villages.
According to OCHA (United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs), in the first six months of 2023, 591 attacks related to settlers were recorded, which is an average of 99 per month. Following this statistic, OCHA announced the displacement of 400 Palestinians in the same year, and the United Nations declared this year (2023) the deadliest year since the beginning of recording casualties for Palestinians.
In addition, the Palestinian Prisoners' Center reported on April 26, 2023, that 1,000 people were imprisoned in the occupied territories, including minors and teenagers. Apart from refugees and displacement of Palestinians, some of the people of this land have been imprisoned in Zionist prisons for the crime of defending their basic rights, i.e., the right to live in their homeland, and they endure very difficult conditions. From the point of view of the law, considering that the Zionist regime is considered an illegal regime, the courts held by it are illegal and do not have the authority to try a person who is from the occupied land for the crime of protesting the occupation of his homeland.
In all these years, even people with disabilities have lived in very dire conditions during the air strikes of the Zionist regime. The blockade of Gaza by the occupying regime has created many restrictions on Palestinians' access to first aid, medical care, and essential electricity. To justify the successive bombings of Palestinian homes, the Zionist regime argues that it has adopted a policy of deterrence.
On July 28, 2023, in response to the Zionist regime's court ruling against the Palestinian people, according to which 500 Palestinians were sentenced to forced migration, Amnesty International considered it as apartheid. According to this ruling, the Palestinians are required to vacate their land and houses by March 2024, and in addition, they must pay a fine of $31,700. Meanwhile, instead of paying attention to the displacement of Palestinians, on April 20, 2023, at the request of several human rights organizations, Human Rights Watch started supporting Jews in the fight against anti-Semitism!
The forced migration of Palestinians is to implement the plan to build a new neighborhood called Dimona for Jews. This behavior shows only a part of the discriminatory laws regarding land and property ownership to implement apartheid against Palestinian citizens by the Zionist regime. Hamas stated in a statement on August 8, 2023, that the Israeli tactic of demolishing homes is "a policy of impotence" that has proven its failure to quell the resistance and affect the morale of the resistance fighters and their struggling families.
According to the legal standards that are accepted in the whole world, a person who is expelled from his motherland has the right to pursue his violated rights, and international organizations have to recognize this right and provide the basis for the return of refugees to their homeland.
This is even though international organizations have failed to do much about the Palestinian refugees. For seven decades, Palestinians have been expelled from their homeland by threats and killings, and international organizations have remained silent against the crimes of the Zionists. In this regard, three categories of international organizations can enter into this issue and hold the Zionist regime responsible for the riots. The first category is human rights organizations such as the Human Rights Council and human rights groups, both governmental and non-governmental; the second category is the United Nations and its affiliated institutions, and the third category is legal and international courts, especially the International Criminal Court, which can act in this field. Although the Zionist regime is not a member of this court, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court can start an investigation into the crimes of the Zionist regime.
Today, the Zionist regime has highlighted the failure of the efforts of the European Union and international institutions by demolishing thousands of Palestinian homes, demolishing hundreds of villages, and massacring the Palestinian people. Instead of helping and taking the initiative to end the violations of the occupying regime and implement the expected justice for the Palestinians, the international institutions continue to reward the Zionist regime with more political, economic, and technological support and cooperation.
Today, the Zionist regime should not be allowed to trample the rights of the Palestinian people and play the role of a victim by using propaganda. The countries that support Palestine should expose the crimes of the occupying regime in the way of informing public opinion. Just as the American media during the World Wars made hundreds of films against the Nazis in Germany, fully informing the public about the behavior of the Nazis. The recent brazen attack by the Zionist regime on Al-Momadani hospital and the massacre of more than a thousand innocent women and children, which is an example of a clear war crime, requires the unity of Muslims and all the freedom seekers of the world to end the new global Nazi killing machine, i.e., the Zionists, and the new benchmark of human rights for International human rights organizations and institutions.
Masoumeh Saif Afjehi, Manager of Human Rights and Women's Studies Department
(The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the IPIS)