Human rights workers say they cannot get access to document abuses
An international human rights group has accused Israel of not allowing researches into the Gaza Strip to document human rights abuses. The group, Human Rights Watch, says that Israel’s restrictions call into question whether Israel is committed as it says to investigating human rights violations. Almost two million people live in Gaza under increasingly difficult conditions with many dependent on food aid from the United Nations.
The 47-page report, called Unwilling or Unable: Israeli Restrictions on Travel To and From Gaza for Human Rights Workers” says that Israel has prevented its researchers from entering Gaza since 2008, with one exception last year. The report says that Egypt, which controls the Rafah crossing, has also prohibited its researchers as well as those from Amnesty International. Gaza has been under the control of the Islamist Hamas movement since 2007.
“We believe it is in Israel’s interests to allow foreign researchers to enter Gaza,” Sari Bashi, Israel and Palestine advocacy director at Human Rights Watch told The Media Line. “The Foreign Ministry always complains that we don’t do enough to document Palestinian human rights abuses. But not allowing experts in limits investigations. We know that Hamas in some cases arrests and event tortures human rights workers. If we could get foreigners in, there is so much more we could do.”
The report says that the Israeli policy could lead to trouble with the International Criminal Court or ICC, which has begun an investigation into Israel’s conduct in the 2014 war with Hamas in Gaza that left more than 2100 Palestinians, both Hamas fighters and civilians, killed. Seventy-three Israelis, most of them soldiers, also died in the fighting. The ICC is meant to investigate only when a country is not conducting its own investigations.
“If Israel wants the ICC prosecutor to take seriously its argument that its criminal investigations are adequate, a good first step would be to allow human rights researchers to bring relevant information to light,” Bashi said.
The Israeli government rejects these claims.
“All requests are thoroughly examined by the CLA and security officials. We coordinate the crossing of many human rights organizations such as Doctors Without Borders, The Global Doctors Organization and many more on a regular basis,” a spokesman for COGAT, the Israeli body responsible for coordinating entry into Gaza told The Media Line. “We would like to emphasize that the Gaza Strip in run by the Hamas terror organization, that openly works to harm the security of the State of Israel, causing a constant tension between the will to help the civilian Gaza residents and our duty to protect the citizens of Israel. The Hamas members take advantage of the residents crossing licenses for their military purposes, thus harming the residents in need of assistance.”
As an example the Israeli government announced it had seized dozens of wet suits that were meant for Hamas naval commandos to enter Israel. The Defense Ministry said the wet suits were concealed in a shipment of sports clothes that were being imported into Gaza from abroad.
Human Rights Watch also criticized Egypt for barring access to Gaza since 2012, and for Hamas’ refusal to cooperate with its investigators. Hamas has also sealed the border from its side since the assassination of senior Hamas gunman Mazen Fuqah last month. Hamas has accused Israel of the killing, and said it sealed its borders to catch those involved.
The report comes as Palestinians in Gaza warn that Gazans are growing increasingly frustrated with the economic and political situation in Gaza. Unemployment is growing, and the economy is stagnating.
“There is no kind of normal life in Gaza,” Jaber Wishah, the Deputy Director of the Palestine Center for Human Rights (PCHR) told The Media Line. “There is a lack of minimal basic rights including freedom of movement, health and education. The most dangerous thing is the ongoing uncertainty.”
Every year, he said, 18,000 new university graduates enter the market, and most of them will not find jobs.