Occupation and Its Realities

The occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip has continued unabated since 1967. Its impact on the lives of Palestinians cannot be overstated, taking the form of gruesome violence against civilians, the restriction of free movement, arbitrary arrests and detentions of Palestinian men, women, and children, home demolitions, extra-judicial assassinations, and other forms of collective punishment.

Contents

• Restriction of Movement (Checkpoints, Curfews, Road Blocks)
• Home Demolitions
• Mass Arbitrary Arrests and Detentions
• Collective Punishment and Violence Against Palestinians

Restriction of Movement- Checkpoints, Curfews, Road Blocks

Imagine that you must pass through a checkpoint in order to leave Berkeley and travel to any other city, even Oakland. Imagine, furthermore, that hundreds of dirt and concrete obstacles block your access to roads in Berkeley. The impediments to your movement will have a great impact on your daily life.

Imagine, furthermore, that these checkpoints and roadblocks are placed there by the Oregon State Police, who can issue–by decree–any arbitrary regulations about who can pass at what times and under what conditions. There is no legal framework in which you are guaranteed access to medical care, to your workplace, to your school, or to the market. You are at the mercy of the Oregon State Police.

Finally, imagine that Oregon declares all unincorporated areas outside of Berkeley’s city limits to be “Oregon State Lands.” Only the Oregon State Police can grant permits to build on this land, and they have an unstated but very obvious policy of refusing such permitsto any Berkeley resident.

You would inevitably conclude that the checkpoints are inhumane on the one hand, and primarily serve Oregon’s desire to control land in California on the other hand.

For Palestinians in the Occupied West Bank, the checkpoints and other impediments to movement are simply a means for Israel to control all activity in the West Bank, particularly land-use policy. They also make it easy to collectively punish the entire Palestinian population on short notice.

It is important to understand that the vast majority of these checkpoints and roadblocks are not on the Green Line, which is the de facto border between Israel and the West Bank. Rather, the vast majority are internal to the West Bank, including 27 permanently staffed checkpoints that block movement between different Palestinian cities; 16 temporarily staffed checkpoints manned when the West Bank is put under Israeli closure; 12 checkpoints in the city of Hebron; and hundreds of earth and concrete barriers blocking roads from village to village, from city to city, and sometimes completely preventing any movement outside of a city at all.

These impediments allow for the imposition of arbitrary curfews on the West Bank by Israel. During the second intifada (2000-2005), the Israeli military placed entire villages under curfew if some of the residents were suspected of throwing stones. Towns from which suicide attackers came were treated even more harshly, including cities like Nablus. Curfews, furthermore, were enforced with live fire, in accordance with IDF regulations that were revised to allow for the clamp down of any sort of Palestinian political activity with an iron fist. (Source: B’tselem)

Abuse at these checkpoints is rampant and well-documented, including beatings, verbal abuse, confiscation of car keys for extended periods of time, the puncturing of car tires, confiscation or desecration of identification documents, and the constant presence of guns as a means of intimidation. These are apart from the structural abuses that are inherent to the checkpoint regime including the frequent inability of ambulances to pass through checkpoints, leading to deaths, serious injuries, women giving birth at checkpoints (resulting in death or injury to both the baby and the mother); blocked access to food, water, and other necessary supplies, particularly when cities and villages are arbitrarily placed under curfew; denial of access to schools/universities, greatly impeding Palestinian youth from leading normal lives; separation of families who have relatives throughout the West Bank; denial of access to work, greatly exasperating unemployment in the West Bank.

The checkpoints and roadblocks in the West Bank serve to deny Palestinians access to their own land, which is constantly being expropriated and exploited from underneath them for the sole benefit of Israelis. The checkpoint regime is not a security measure: it is an apartheid regime.

Home Demolitions

The Israeli military demolishes homes for three reasons: as a punitive measure to “punish” the families of Palestinian militants and political activists; for alleged “military purposes;” and for houses that are built “illegally” without permits.

According to B’tselem, between 2001 and 2005, the Israeli military demolished 668 Palestinian homes as “punishment,” leaving over 4000 Palestinians homeless. Israel ceased this policy of punitive home demolitions in February 2005, but it continues to demolish Palestinian homes for other reasons.

Between 1987 and 2003, the Israeli military has demolished at least 3,300 Palestinian homes which were built “illegally” without “permits.” However, Israel is an occupying force in the West Bank, and has no legal right to determine where Palestinians may or may not build on their own lands. Furthermore, Israel has a well-known policy of denying permits to Palestinians in certain areas, in order to preserve the land for itself. The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) notes that “the majority of house demolitions are conducted for ‘Administrative’ reasons generally because the house was built without a permit. However permits are almost impossible impossible to obtain by Palestinians living under Occupation.”

On top of this, between 2004 and 2007, Israel has left over 13,000 Palestinians homeless after demolishing their homes for “military purposes.” In large part, these demolitions occur around settlements, and attack not only homes, but also Palestinian agricultural lands. Ostensibly, these destroyed lands are to create security zones where no Palestinians live or work. However, these actions, especially when they target innocent Palestinians (as they do the vast majority of the time), punish Palestinians collectively and illegally. ICAHD finds that these actions are illegal under international law, citing Article 53 of the Geneva Convention which says that “Any destruction by the Occupying Power of real or personal property belonging individually or collectively to private persons… is prohibited.”

Mass Arbitrary Arrests and Detentions

More information coming soon.

Collective Punishment and Violence Against Palestinians

On November 8th, 2006, a residential neighborhood in the town of Beit Hanun in Gaza came under a shelling attack by the Israeli military (IDF). 18 Palestinian civilians–all members of the Atamna family–were killed. The IDF claimed that the attack was a “regrettable accidenta” and that it was aimed elsewhere, but does not claim it was a defensive operation. IDF shelling attacks in Gaza primarily serve a political rather than a military purpose. They are meant to collectively punish the civilian population of Gaza for “allowing” violence against Israel. This tactic is known as “squeezing” and is a war crime.

Nine days earlier, on October 30th, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert boasted to the Knesset that the IDF killed “300 terrorists” in gaza in the past 3 months. In fact, the IDF had killed 300 people, 155 of whom were innocent civilians, including 57 children, and many of whom engaged in hostilities against Israeli soldiers in Gaza but not against Israeli civilians.

Between September 2000 and December 31, 2007, 4371 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli military personnel and civilians, while approximately 234 Israeli civilians and 238 Israeli military personnel have been killed by Palestinians.

As is evident, under the auspices of the occupying IDF, Palestinians have been completely dehumanized. Statements by Israeli political leaders, generals, and military field commanders have greatly contributed to an environment in which soldiers or units who are serving the occupation can inflict violence against Palestinians with impunity. Furthermore, a series of military directives and policy changes at the beginning of the second intifada have made it much easier to shoot and much harder to be brought to account for such crimes.

Among these have been the following:

• In 2000, the IDF, largely through verbal directives, changed its Open-Fire regulations. Previously, soldiers were allowed to open fire only in life-threatening situations, or to quell violent disturbances after a series of escalating non-lethal means failed to do so, or to apprehend a fleeing suspect after firing a warning shot (and only shots in the foot were allowed in this case). With the new orders, soldiers were permitted to shoot and kill rock-throwers, use live fire to enforce curfews, and avoid the warning shot in certain situations. (Source: B’tselem)
• At the same time, the Judge Advocate General’s office decided that military investigations would not automatically be launched into the deaths of those Palestinians not engaged in hostilities. Since 2000, only 131 investigations have been launched into the deaths of Palestinians, and only 18 indictments have been filed. The rationale behind these policies was that the situation in the Occupied Territories was now an “armed conflict” and care would be impossible. Israeli human rights organization B’tselem observes, however, “This definition ignores the reality in the Occupied Territories, in which a substantial portion of the IDF activities in the Occupied Territories–dispersing demonstrators, making arrests, restricting freedom of movement–are policing and law enforcement actions.” (Source: B’tselem)
• In 2001, Chief of Staff Shaul Mofaz, at a meeting of high-ranking military officials, “asked for the tape to be switched off before telling them that he wanted a ‘price’ exacted from the Palestinians of 10 killed a day on each of the Army’s seven fronts.” Mofaz would go on to become Israel’s Defense Secretary. (Source: The Independent, quoting the book Boomerang by Israeli journalists Ofer Shelah and Raviv Druker).
• In April 2006, the IDF reduced its “safety range” between military targets and civilians from 300 meters to 100 meters. This happened in the context of similar “squeezing” operations in Gaza, during which civilians were also killed. (Source: B’tselem)

This is the atmosphere in which “accidents” like that at Beit Hanun occur. As suggested by Shaul Mofaz’ influence on Israeli military policy since 2000, Israel deliberately turns a blind eye to the killing of Palestinian civilians so as to “exact a price” from the population as a whole, to make the cost of attacks on Israeli civilians, but also of legitimately rejecting and resisting the occupation, too high for the Palestinians to bear so that they will submit to a resolution dictated by Israel. Violence against Palestinian rarely serves a legitimate military or security purpose, but rather plays a political role to establish Israel as the superior force in the region, so that Palestinians might abandon their struggle for justice and equality in their own land.