The ICJ today denounced Israel’s system of apartheid against Palestinians in a statement for the interactive dialogue with the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967 at the UN Human Rights Council.
The statement could not be delivered due to the limited time provided for NGO Statements.
The statement reads as follows:
“Mr. President,
The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) strongly condemns Israel’s laws, policies and practices of racial segregation, persecution and apartheid against the indigenous Palestinian population in Israel and in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), comprising the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and against Palestinian refugees.
Across Israel and the OPT, Jewish Israelis are accorded a privileged status, including certain exclusive rights to access to land and services, whereas Palestinians are systematically discriminated against and subjugated by virtue of their national, racialized identity as Palestinians, and continue to be the victims of several inhumane acts that deprive them of their human rights.
Echoing many Palestinian, Israeli and international human rights organizations, the ICJ draws the Council’s attention to the fact that Israel has perpetrated the crime of apartheid as defined, inter alia, in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court by establishing and maintaining, I quote, an “institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over [another] racial group”.
The ICJ calls on this Council to urge Israel to end its system of apartheid against Palestinians, and to guarantee the full enjoyment of human rights, including the rights to self-determination and to return, of all Palestinians in order to eradicate apartheid in Israel and the OPT.
Thank you.”
Contact:
Massimo Frigo, ICJ UN Representative, e: massimo.frigo(a)icj.org, t: +41797499949