Tehran, Dec 10, IRNA,As the world celebrates the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (December 10), Israel continues with its gross and systematic human rights violations in Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
The Human Rights Day in the Islamic world coincided with Eid al-Adha (the feast of sacrifice) though the occasion brought little joy for most of the 1.5 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip languishing without food, electricity and heating bracing for fresh Israeli raids.
In response to the growing international call to end the Gaza blockade, the outgoing Prime Minister of the Zionist regime, Ehud Olmert arrogantly said that he had ordered security chiefs to draw up contingency plans for military action against the democratically elected government of Hamas.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights envisages a world in which every man, woman and child lives in dignity, free from hunger, violence and discrimination, and enjoys the benefits of housing, health care, education and opportunity.
But in stark violation of these principles, the Israelis are continuing their targeted killings, torture, confiscation, demolition and displacement, and racist and discriminatory practices in occupied Palestinian lands.
Tel Aviv is also pushing ahead with its illegal colonizing program establishing vast settlements. There is also a news blackout imposed by the occupiers.
As put by one senior Iranian official Israel’s brazen acts in Gaza are tantamount to “modern barbarism”. Another official with the UN relief body in Gaza described the situation as “a humanitarian crisis deliberately imposed by political actors.”
Under pressure from the United Nations and other international bodies, Israel eased the blockade on Thursday, allowing foreign journalist and aid workers as well as ‘a limited amount of vital goods’ to enter the besieged Palestinian territory. But shortly after the announcement on Tuesday, Israeli defense officials re-imposed the ban on media entering Gaza.
The reason is too obvious to explain! The opening of the crossings too has not improved the humanitarian situation in the coastal strip.
The desperate plight of the civilian population of Gaza has been acknowledged by such international figures as the Secretary General of the United Nations, the President of the General Assembly, and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
However, Israel maintains its Gaza siege in its full fury, allowing only barely enough food and fuel to enter to stave off mass famine and disease.
“Such a policy of collective punishment, initiated by Israel to punish Gazans for political developments within the Gaza Strip, constitutes a continuing flagrant and massive violation of international humanitarian law as laid down in Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention,” says the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights on Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, Richard Falk.
Karen AbyZayd, who heads the UN relief effort in Gaza, says protective action must be taken immediately to offset the persisting and wide-ranging violations of the fundamental human right to life, and in view of the emergency situation that is producing a humanitarian catastrophe that is unfolding day by day.
At the very least, he says, an urgent effort should be made at the United Nations to implement the agreed norm of a “responsibility to protect” a civilian population being collectively punished by policies that amount to a Crime against Humanity.
The deprivation, pain and death the Western and Arab leaders have helped inflict on about 1.5 million civilians for the last 30 months, are in open violation of every Article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).
Ten thousand Palestinians, including women and children, abducted from their homes, are languishing in Israeli prisons, many without charge or trial.
Israel has seized more than 38 per cent of the West Bank, including prime agricultural land and strategic water resources, and these areas are off-limits to Palestinians.
Eighty per cent of the West Bank’s precious water is now diverted to illegal settlements while Palestinians are strictly rationed or go without.
The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) said in its annual report published on Sunday that Israel’s discrimination between Jewish settlers and Palestinians in the West Bank is increasingly reminiscent of white South Africa’s apartheid system.
Jewish settlements in the Palestinian territory “have created a situation of institutionalized discrimination and segregation,” it said.
“The discrimination in services, budgets and access to natural resources between the two groups in the same territory constitutes a stark violation of the principle of equality, which (is reminiscent) in many and increasing ways (of) the apartheid regime that was applied in South Africa,” ACRI said.
The report noted that the 2.3 million Palestinians in the West Bank outside annexed Arab east Jerusalem are subject to military law and administration.
By contrast, the 250,000 settlers live under Israeli civilian law.
While the settlers use a modern and developed road system restricted to Israeli cars, the Palestinians are forced to use “winding and dangerous roads,” the report said.
In addition, Israel imposes strict restrictions on construction in Palestinian towns and villages and does not develop basic
infrastructure there.
The report cited UN figures showing that some 65 percent of roads leading to the 18 most populous Palestinian West Bank towns are blocked or controlled by military checkpoints. The United Nations says more than 600 roadblocks impede Palestini