, Haaretz Correspondent and Haaretz Service
Tishrei 30, 5765
Israel is guilty of severe human rights
violations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, including "wanton destruction" of
houses and infrastructure, according to a United Nations report obtained
Thursday by The Associated Press.
The annual human rights report is to be
presented to the UN General Assembly later this month.
The 18-page report
was prepared by John Dugard, the UN representative for human rights. It charges
that while some of Israel's actions in the Palestinian areas can be explained by
security concerns, many cannot.
During operations in the Gaza Strip,
Israel engaged in "massive and wanton destruction of property," the report said.
"Bulldozers have destroyed homes in a purposeless manner and have savagely dug
up roads, including electricity, sewage and water lines."
The report is
dated August 12, well before the current Israeli operation in northern Gaza, the
largest in four years of fighting. On Thursday, Israeli forces pulled out of
the Gaza town of Beit Lahiya, leaving behind a swath of destruction.
The
report criticizes repeated Israeli operations in the Rafah refugee camp on the
Gaza-Egypt border. Israel has said its forces were looking for arms smuggling
tunnels.
The document said that over four years, "1,497 buildings have
been demolished in Rafah, affecting over 15,000 people." Some of the
destruction, along the border, was for operational reasons, the report said.
"Often, however, the destruction is wanton," it charged.
The UN report
concentrates on Israeli violations, according to the mandate given by the world
body, and does not cover Palestinian attacks against Israelis, beyond noting
that nearly 1,000 Israelis have been killed during the conflict.
Israeli
Foreign Ministry legal adviser Daniel Taub said the fact that the document
glossed over the Rafah gunrunners' tunnels and ignored the suicide bombings that
Israel says the West Bank fence is meant to stop, means the report "has nothing
to contribute to any serious discussion about finding the right balance between
security and human rights."
The report also criticizes Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon's plan to withdraw from Gaza next year, as well as the separation
barrier Israel is building along the line between Israel and the West Bank,
dipping into the territory in some places.
Israel's disengagement plan is
designed to allow Israel to say that its occupation of Gaza is over, and it is
no longer bound by terms of the Fourth Geneva Convention governing occupied
territories - but since Israel would retain control of border crossings and air
space, it remains an occupier, the document said.
Israel does not
recognize application of the Geneva Conventions to the West Bank and Gaza,
calling them disputed areas, not occupied.
Some of the harshest criticism
in the report was aimed at the separation barrier, called "the Wall" in the
document.
Israel has said the complex of walls, fences, trenches and
electronic surveillance devices is necessary to keep Palestinian suicide bombers
out of Israel, after hundreds of Israelis were killed.
The UN report
charges that Israel's real goals are to incorporate Jewish settlements into
Israel, confiscate Palestinian land and force Palestinians to move - echoing
Palestinian charges.
"The Wall is responsible for much of the suffering
of the Palestinian people," the document charged. It noted that the UN world
court ordered Israel to tear it down, but Israel is ignoring the ruling,
following instead its own Supreme Court instructions to move the barrier to
reduce hardships on Palestinians.
The report notes that "terrorist
attacks inside Israel" dropped 83 percent in the first half of 2004 compared to
the same period a year before, but "there is no compelling evidence that this
cannot have been done with equal effect by building the Wall along the Green
Line," the 1949 cease-fire line between Israel and the West Bank.
Israel
does not recognize the Green Line as a boundary and insists on negotiating its
permanent border in peace talks.
The report called for international
action against Israel because of the barrier. "This is no time for appeasement
on the part of the international community," the document said
twice.
UN figure calls on EU to freeze Israel's special trade
status
A United Nations food expert called on the European Union to
freeze Israel's special trade partner status, in order to pressure Jerusalem
into ceasing a policy that the expert says is interrupting the distributrion of
foor to Palestinians in the territories.
According to Israel Radio, the
demand was made by Jean Ziegler, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, who
is stationed in Geneva.
Ziegler said he approached the former President
of the European Commission, Romano Prodi on the matter, and that he will also
contacted the new president, José Manuel Barosso. Ziegler said he would
submit a report at the next United Nations General Assembly meeting , according
to which 22 percent of Palestinian children in the territories were suffering
from malnutrition.
Ziegler, a Swiss citizen, was a member of the Swiss
parliament in the past, representing a far left party. He is a controversial
figure, and several Jewish organizations have claimed he is hostile to Israel.
A Geneva-based Jewish group that monitors UN activity asked the chairman of the
UN Commission on Human Rights in Geneva, Micheal Smith, to dismiss Ziegler,
citing his one-sided approach to Israel.
Ziegler has previously called on
Europe to break off trade with Israel, and accused Israel of conducting policies
that were interrupting food distribution in the territories, and compared the
West Bank and Gaza to concentration camps.
A classified foreign
ministry report that was published Wednesday warned that the international
standing of Israel could worsen in the next decade, and that its situation could
resemble apartheid-era South Africa.
The report states that Europe is
gaining international strength, which influences Israel's standing, given
Europe's criticism of Israel's policy in the territories. Europe is strongly
opposed to the route of the separation fence, and EU foreign ministers demanded
this week that the Israel Defense Force cease its operations in the northern
Gaza Strip.
According to documents compiled by the foreign ministry, if
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not resolved, in the next decade Israel and
Europe will find themselves on a collision course that will gravely harm Israel
politically and economically.
The report also states that a new wave of
anti-Semitism is developing in Europe, which denies the legitimacy of Israel as
a sovereign Jewish state.