The latest crackdown on Palestinians in ‘48, the West Bank including East Jerusalem, and Gaza clearly demonstrates Israel’s institutionalized policy aimed at maintaining its settler colonial and apartheid regime over the Palestinian people as a whole.

Palestinians have been resisting forced displacement, dispossession, and ethnic cleansing in various cities and neighborhoods since 1948. Today, families in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah and in Silwan are fighting to save their homes from being stolen by the occupation and Israeli settlers. In Sheik Jarrah and Silwan, around 7,850 Palestinians remain under threat of forced displacement from their homes and land. Forcible transfer of the occupied population is prohibited under international humanitarian law and constitutes a war crime according to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Nahalat Shimon International, a settler organization based in the United States, filed lawsuits to seize the homes of Palestinian families in Sheikh Jarrah using inherently discriminatory laws, such as the Legal and Administrative Matter Laws and the Absentee Property Law of 1950, to forcibly displace Palestinians and confiscate their land or property and transfer their land to Israeli settlers with the support of the Israeli authorities and the judicial system.

Israeli forces systematically deploy disproportionate and unlawful force to disperse protesters during violent raids on Al Aqsa mosque and Church of the Holy Sepulcher and carry out attacks on peaceful protestors in Sheikh Jarrah and other neighborhoods around Jerusalem. After 30 days of repression, 1,000 Palestinians were injured and more than 600 Palestinians were arrested in Jerusalem alone. The total number of arrests is 2650 including Jerusalem, 1948 territories and the West Bank.

We call on the Council to adopt the resolution establishing the Commission of Inquiry addressing the root causes of Israel’s settler colonialism and apartheid as a first step to accountability and justice.

Signatories:

• The Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy- MIFTAH
• Women’s Centre for Legal Aid and Counseling
• Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association
• Ramallah Center for Human Rights Studies (RCHRS)
• The Community Action Center
• Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies

On 22 April 2021, representatives of 28 Palestinian families constituting approximately 500 Palestinians from Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood in occupied East Jerusalem, and 191 endorsing organisations, sent a letter to the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), calling to urgently include the imminent forced displacement of Palestinians from Sheikh Jarrah as part of the open investigation within the Situation in the State of Palestine. Specifically, the families called on her Office to include as part of the investigation the related war crimes and crimes against humanity, including forcible transfer, appropriation of property, persecution, apartheid, and other inhumane acts causing great suffering or serious injury to inter alia mental health arising from their forced evictions.

The letter outlines that following the ruling of Israeli courts in favour of eviction lawsuits undertaken by a settler organisation, 87 Palestinians in the neighbourhood are at imminent risk of forced eviction including four families by 2 May 2021 and three other families by 1 August 2021.

Outlining how the current forced evictions would constitute their second or third forced displacement, the Sheikh Jarrah families highlighted their forcible displacement from their homes in Palestinian towns, cities, and villages, during the Nakba, and their ongoing denial of their inalienable right to return to their homes and properties since 1948. They further underscored the coercive environment they are subject to in Jerusalem, which is designed to transform the city’s demographic composition to secure Israeli-Jewish control over Jerusalem and drive ongoing Palestinian displacement.

The Sheikh Jarrah families continue to endure a lengthy, exhausting, and unaffordable legal battle since 1972 in order to confront the eviction lawsuits brought against them by a settler organization before Israeli courts, which unlawfully apply Israeli discriminatory domestic law to the occupied territory. The families are now pursuing accountability before the ICC.

In their letter, the Sheikh Jarrah families called on the Office of the Prosecutor to publicly condemn the imminent forced evictions of Palestinians in Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood and urgently investigate this case within the Situation of Palestine and intervene to forestall the displacement of these Palestinian families from their homes. The families are supported in their call by 191 organisations, including Palestinian, Israeli, regional and international human rights organisations; Palestinian coalitions representing over 140 Palestinian civil society organisations; solidarity groups for Palestine; faith-based groups; indigenous groups; racial justice groups; and student groups, including Al-Haq, Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, American Muslim Bar Association, the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee, Arab Organization for Human Rights, B’Tselem - The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, the Center for Constitutional Rights, Grassroots Jerusalem, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), ICAHD (The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions), Jewish Voice for Peace, the National Lawyers Guild, Norwegian People’s Aid, Pax Christi International, Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, Palestinian NGOs Network, Palestinian Human Rights Organizations Council (PHROC), The Red Nation, US Campaign for Palestinian Rights and War on Want.

To access the letter and the list of endorsing organisations, please click here.

No to the undermining of the Basic Law and Rights System

We, the undersigned civil society institutions and coalitions, express our rejection of any tampering with the legal system on the eve of elections. We consider this a means of manipulation that could undercut these elections and limit spaces for civic action, impacting the freedom of opinion, organization, gathering and expression. It is tantamount to a coup against the Palestinian Basic Law and the Declaration of Independence, both of which constitute a social contract between the various components of the Palestinian people until a constitution for the State of Palestine is written.

We call on President Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian government to cancel all laws by decree that infringe on public freedoms and the separation of authorities, particularly the Law by Decree, No. 7 of 2021, which confines and stymies the work of civil society institutions and undermines their role in defending the interests of our people and supporting their steadfastness in the face of ethnic cleansing and forced expulsion, in addition to adopting projects that support Palestinian resolve against Israeli annexation plans and encroachment.

We also express our rejection of the Law by Decree, No. 40 of 2020, which infringes on the principle of separation between the authorities and attaches the judicial authority to the executive authority and all laws by decree that limit the independence and freedom of union work.

We, as civil society, have exhausted all means of dialogue with the government to persuade it to renege on the aforementioned laws by decree, with no meaningful response. In particular, the implementation of the Law by Decree No. 7 of 2021 by the Ministry of Interior and any relevant ministry will render all civil society institutions vulnerable to the arbitrariness of the executive authority. It also exposes its executive teams and boards of directors to legal accountability in accordance with this law by decree that runs contradictory to the Basic Law. Therefore, we declare our boycott of the Ministry of Women’s Affairs conference, to be held on Tuesday, March 30, 2021 under the auspices of Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh and suspend our participation in joint activities with the government henceforth until the law by decree is cancelled. We also announce as of the start of this week, we will escalate our activities to overturn this law by decree.

We support the mainstreaming of principles of accountability and good governance in all sectors, in accordance with the law and far removed from arbitrariness, the silencing of voices, stifling of freedoms and destruction of civil society institutions. This is so the system of accountability and integrity is capable of operating with efficiency in the defense of our people’s interests, dignity and status among civilized nations. We call on all components of the executive authority to respect the Basic Law and international obligations of the State of Palestine, for which we seek a respectable standing among counties that honor public freedoms.

*The National campaign for the protection of civic action is comprised of a broad-based alliance of civil society coalitions that reject the Law by Decree No. 7 of 2021.