UN-Truth

As Quartet Envoy Tony Blair and Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter careen around the region, showing up by design or purest coincidence together in Gaza today, the Israeli Defense Ministry’s Coordinator of [Israeli] Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) has suddenly authorized a significant increase in the number of trucks carrying humanitarian supplies to enter the Gaza Strip to some 144 yesterday and 177 today or so (last week it was about 100 fewer trucks than that per day).

Jimmy Carter visits the bombed-out shell of the former American International School in Gaza

Meanwhile, two Israeli human rights groups — GISHA and HAMOKED — have just gone public with their opposition to a new official procedure that restricts Palestinian civil and human rights.

GISHA and HAMOKED say this procedure “has come to light following HaMoked’s petitions to the Supreme Court”.

According to the two Israeli human rights groups, “The procedure demands a 7-year ‘naturalization’ process for Palestinians wishing to move from Gaza to the West Bank despite the fact that according to the Oslo Accords Palestinians may freely choose their place of residence in the Palestinian territory”.

This procedure, they say, “reveals a far-reaching Israeli policy intended to deepen and formalize the separation between the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Under the new procedure, Israel sets extremely stringent conditions for change of residence from the Gaza Strip to the West Bank , erecting a new and virtually insurmountable barrier between the two areas. The procedure takes Israel ’s policy of separation between Gaza and the West Bank to a new level, undermining the prospect of a viable Palestinian state and exacting a high price from the Palestinian population of the Occupied Territory … Israel continues to act systematically to further isolate the Gaza Strip and increase the area’s geographic and political separation from the West Bank. [And] the new procedure contradicts a series of Israeli undertakings to negotiate the establishment of an independent, viable Palestinian state, including an explicit commitment in the Oslo Accords to preserve the status of the West Bank and Gaza Strip as ‘a single territorial unit’.”

The two groups said that “The procedure’s ‘humanitarian criteria’ … [states] that family ties in themselves do not constitute humanitarian grounds for relocation to the West Bank … [meaning] that an orphan from Gaza who has lost his mother will be barred from joining his father who lives in the West Bank if there are any relatives in Gaza capable of caring for the child”.

The two groups issued a call on Israel “to cancel the procedure and allow Palestinians to move from the Gaza Strip to the West Bank , and change their registered address accordingly. We also call on the international community to take action to have Israel revoke this procedure, which violates the basic rights of Palestinians in the Occupied Territory , severely damages the ties between Gaza and the West Bank and undermines the possibility of establishing a viable Palestinian state”.

Filed under: Boundaries & Borders, Gaza, Human Rights, Humanitarian Aid, International Humanitarian Law, International Law, Israel, Middle East Peace Process, NGOs, Negotiators and negotiations, Palestine & Palestinians, Sanctions