Civil Society and the Question of Palestine
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Middle East/Palestine
- On 28 February 2022, the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS) issued a statement on the upcoming 49th United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), taking place from 28 February until 1 April 2022. CIHRS will present three written statements on Israeli violations and crimes against the Palestinian people under the apartheid regime. In one statement, CIHRS calls on the United Nations and member states to recognize and condemn Israel’s crime of apartheid against the Palestinian people. In the second joint statement, CIHRS and partners condemned Israel’s policy of arbitrary detention, especially its escalation of administrative detentions and mass arrests against Palestinians. In the third statement, CIHRS and partners addressed the rise in violent crimes committed by Israeli settlers against Palestinians, amid the expansion of the Israeli settlement project and an institutional climate of impunity.
- On 24 February, BADIL, in cooperation with members of the Global Palestinian Refugee Network across the OPT/ West Bank, implemented the Youth Initiative Project, in which 30 youth participants carried out five community initiatives aimed at strengthening Palestinian resilience, facilitating access to land and natural resources, and enhancing the right to return.
Israel
- On 27 February, HaMoked reported that on February 24, 2022, the High Court of Justice (HCJ) unanimously approved the demolition of a two-room apartment, the entire ground floor of a two-story house in the village of Silat al-Harithiya in the West Bank. HaMoked issued a petition against demolition. In rejecting HaMoked’s petition, the Court refused to consider the principled argument that punitive demolitions constitute collective punishment prohibited under international law.
- On 27 February, Peace Now reported that more than 300 activists from all over the country joined its protest on 18th January at the illegal outpost of Evyatar. The establishment of a new settlement in the depths of the West Bank is a security burden and a real threat to the chances for peace, says the report. This event marks a new period of protest and solidarity action of Israelis in the Occupied Territories.
- The Columbia University Centre for Palestinian Studies invites the public to a book talk with Leila Farsakh, editor of Rethinking Statehood in Palestine: Self-Determination and Decolonization Beyond Partition, published by University of California Press (2021). The event will take place at 1PM – 2:15PM on 23 March 2022.
- On 28 February, the European Coordination of Committees and Associations for Palestine (ECCP) shared the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI), #StopTradeWithSettlements petition to demand the EU to ban trade with illegal settlements.
United Nations
- On 1st March, the Palestinian Rights Committee held closed consultations with CSOs. The four speakers, from Palestine, Israel and the US, discussed the #Savesheikhjarrah campaign and local committees’ activism, settler-violence; displacement in unrecognized villages, and accountability through international independent CSO monitoring. The meeting stressed the need to hold Israel accountable for practices contrary to international law vis-a-vis the Palestinian population as central to ensure the end of the occupation.
- On 28 February, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs issued the Protection of Civilians Report for the reporting period 8 – 21 February 2022. Amongst other incidences, Israeli forces shot and killed five Palestinians, including one child, in three separate incidents across the West Bank. A total of 544 Palestinians, including 54 children, were injured by Israeli forces across the West Bank.
This newsletter informs about recent and upcoming activities of Civil Society Organizations affiliated with the United Nations Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People. The Committee and the Division for Palestinian Rights of the UN Secretariat provide the information “as is” without warranty of any kind, and do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, or reliability of the information contained in the websites linked in the newsletter.