Date:23 Jun 2023
The environment of the report (the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories – the purpose of the report – the divisions of the report):
During the year 2022, the crisis of the Palestinian political system continued, the absence of democracy, the disruption of elections, the dominance of the executive authority over the judiciary, the continued dissolution of the Legislative Council, the ineffectiveness of the institutions of liberation organizations, the continuation of the state of exclusivity and exclusion in the political system, and the absence of local and student elections in the Gaza Strip the executive authority encroached on rights and freedoms, especially in the wake of the murder of activist Nizar Banat in the West Bank, while the disastrous humanitarian situation in the sector remained the same. This exacerbated the human rights crisis in the Palestinian territories, which involves the weakness of human and peoples’ rights guaranteed in international conventions.
The cessation of the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip, which lasted for three days and stopped in August 2022, revealed horrific scenes of Israeli crimes committed against Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip, where the Israeli military occupation forces deliberately and systematically targeted the debtors, and their civilian properties, especially residential homes located in densely populated neighborhoods, with the aim of killing children and women, displacing thousands of families, and causing severe material damage to the residential surroundings of these facilities.
According to the latest statistics issued by the Palestinian Ministry of Health, 56 people, including 19 children, were killed in the Israeli military attacks on the Gaza Strip, and hundreds were injured, In addition to widespread destruction of homes and infrastructure; In addition, the occupation authorities have continued to impose collective sanctions and restrictions on the Gaza Strip for about 16 years in a row, by closing the crossings and preventing the passage of goods and citizens, including the Palestinian patients, who prevented nearly 8,000 patients from traveling to receive the necessary treatment in hospitals outside the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli blockade and the subsequent punitive measures in the Gaza Strip aggravated the situation, making nearly a third of the Palestinian families in the Gaza Strip suffer from food insecurity, and raising the poverty rate, which reached 75%, of whom 34% are below the poverty line, and the unemployment rate in the Gaza Strip reached more than 56%, most of whom are young people, especially university graduates, with about 70% of them, and proportion of food insecure is over 80%, in addition, there are multiple crises related to electricity and drinkable water shortages, health and education sector crises and other critical sectors, as well as power outages for about 12 hours a day, which have a significant impact on various other critical sectors.
During 2022, field killings of 178 West Bank citizens escalated markedly during raids on villages, cities and camps in the West Bank and occupied Jerusalem, as well as on roadblocks.
During 2022, arbitrary arrests has wildly increased, thousands of civilians in the West Bank and approximately 107 civilians in the Gaza Strip, most of whom were detained at crossings around the occupation of detention points; the Israeli occupation forces continue to pursue oppressive policies against Palestinian detainees with a view to undermining their dignity, through a policy of physical and psychological torture and deliberate medical neglect in Israeli prisons and detention centers, which have claimed the lives of 333 Palestinian prisoners in detention in the Israeli prisons.
The year 2022 was the worst in settlement incursion in the cities of the West Bank and occupied Jerusalem, with data indicating a high rate of forced confiscation of land and property in favor of the implementation of settlement projects, including the expansion of settlement outposts, according to civil and international human rights organizations, 45% of the total area of the West Bank and occupied Jerusalem has been confiscated for a war crime described and completed in accordance with the established provisions of international humanitarian law, notably Geneva conventions in 1949.
