Richard Falk, the former United Nations rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories, said that since the imposition of the blockade on the Gaza Strip in 2007, the civilian population of two million has been subjected to a range of conditions that violated the occupying power’s most basic obligations as enshrined in treaties dealing with Occupation.
This came during the international forum organized by the Days of Palestine Foundation in partnership with the “We Are Not Numbers” team and the “October 16” team, under the title (Gaza Siege.. An Ongoing Crime), in the presence of many guests at the local and international levels.
Falk stressed that the blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip negatively affects the economic, health and political sectors, as it is a continuous, major and flagrant violation of Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits collective punishment.
Noting that the civilian population of Gaza has been, and still is, the victim of various forms of collective punishment, beginning with the siege itself, which is periodically exacerbated by illegal military attacks carried out by Israel on a large scale every few years; This resulted in a huge number of civilian casualties.
He stressed that the basic essence of international humanitarian law – in particular – with regard to occupation is stipulated in Article Three, which clearly prohibits such an aggressive approach. The law calls on the occupying Israeli power to treat civilians in all circumstances with kindness.
He said that the Israeli occupation defies international law in several ways by carrying out unlawful assassinations and fails to protect the civilian population and uses its air, sea and land war forces against the vulnerable, and therefore I believe that this goes beyond a reasonable conflict, because Israel’s practices are a serious, cruel and continuous violation of the basic duties of a member state of the nations The United States and a sovereign state that respects the nature of the basics of international law.
He pointed out that the United Nations bears a special responsibility towards Palestine, but it did not fulfill it at all and diverted its course with distorted interventions, especially from the United States and the European Union, which have a shameful record regarding Palestine since the British Mandate era.
He concluded by saying: “I thank you for giving me this opportunity, for your patience, and I wish a better future for the people of Gaza in awareness of their urgent demands, and for people like us around the world to show their solidarity with the Gazans.”
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