Amnesty International accused Israel on Tuesday of subjecting Palestinians to an apartheid system based on “segregation, dispossession and exclusion” practices that amounted to crimes against humanity.
According to the London-based rights group, its findings are based on research and legal analysis included in a 211-page study on Israeli confiscation of Palestinian land and property, illegal executions, forceful relocation of persons, and denial of citizenship.
According to Israel, the study, the second by an international rights group in less than a year accusing it of following an apartheid policy, “consolidates and recycles lies” from hate groups and is intended to “pour fuel onto the fire of antisemitism” Amnesty UK was accused of employing “double standards and demonization in order to delegitimize Israel”
According to Amnesty International, Israel is implementing an oppressive and domineering regime against Palestinians “wherever it has control over their rights” including Arab Israeli residents, Palestinians in Israeli-occupied territories, and refugees residing abroad.
Restriction on Palestinian mobility in land seized in the 1967 Middle East conflict, underinvestment in Palestinian towns in Israel, and preventing Palestinian refugees from returning were among the tactics.
Apart from forceful transfers, torture, and unlawful executions, which according to Amnesty International were used to perpetuate a system of “oppression and domination” they form “the crime against humanity of apartheid”
“Israel is not perfect,” said Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid in a statement, “but it is a democracy committed to international law and open to scrutiny,” with a free press and a powerful Supreme Court.
“I hate to use the argument that if Israel wasn’t a Jewish state, no one in Amnesty would dare to argue against it,” he continued, “but there is no other option in this case.”
According to Bassam Al-Salhe, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s (PLO) Executive Committee, “confirms and supports the Palestinian perspective on the nature of Israeli occupation measures, which has been held for many years. It accurately represents the current situation on the ground.”
Israel has imposed travel restrictions on Palestinians, citing security concerns following an uprising in the early 2000s that included suicide bombings in Israeli cities.
Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza want their own state, with East Jerusalem as its capital. Gaza, a small coastal area that Israel also conquered in the 1967 conflict but abandoned in 2005, is administered by Hamas, which is considered a terrorist organization by the West. In 2014, the most recent round of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks failed.
The United Nations Security Council should impose a weapons embargo on Israel for murdering dozens of civilians during weekly protests on the Gaza border in 2018-19, according to Amnesty International. Attempts by Palestinian terrorists to break Israel’s border barrier were among the demonstrations, according to Israel.