60 YEARS LATER: TIME FOR ISRAEL TO COMPLY WITH THE GENEVA CONVENTIONS

Addameer Public Statement
12 August 2009

As the world marks the 60th anniversary of the Geneva Conventions today, Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association (Addameer) renews its urgent call for Israel to respect the Conventions’ provisions in the occupied Palestinian territory (OPT) – including the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip. Addameer also urges the Conference of High Contracting Parties, which has not met since 2001, to reconvene to address their responsibilities under the Conventions by ensuring Israel’s compliance with all appropriate provisions.

 

The four Geneva Conventions were adopted on 12 August 1949 by the representatives of 48 states convened in Geneva, Switzerland. Applicable in the OPT in the context of Israel’s ongoing belligerent occupation, the Conventions today are one of the major sources of international humanitarian law and are binding upon all 194 states as signatory state parties, making them universal. The Fourth Convention aims at protecting civilians during times of armed conflict who are “in the hands” of the enemy, notably those residing in occupied territories.

 

In the shadow of this anniversary, violations of international humanitarian law by Israel continue with frightening impunity:

 

•    Israel continues to use administrative detention in direct contravention to the Geneva Conventions – on a widespread and illegal basis, as a means of collective punishment and as a substitution for criminal prosecution when there is insufficient evidence to obtain a conviction before the illegally-operated military courts discussed further below. There are currently at least 440 Palestinians from the West Bank and East Jerusalem being detained in administrative detention by Israel, of which three are women and one is a child under the age of 18. All are detained without charge and without any real ability under the law to challenge their detention.

 

•    The Israeli military court system, which has prosecuted hundreds of thousands of Palestinians since its 1967 inception, including more than 150,000 since 1990, operates with an utter disregard for international law and fair trial standards. The Geneva Conventions provide that, as an Occupying Power, Israel has the right under international humanitarian law to establish military courts in the OPT. However, applicable international humanitarian and human rights law restrict the jurisdiction of such courts, and guarantee certain fundamental fair trial rights. Problems persist in both regards.

 

o    The jurisdiction of the Israeli military courts, as set forth in Military Order 378, is far broader than the powers granted to military courts in the Fourth Convention: Article 66 of the Fourth Convention states that military courts are to try cases involving violations of criminal security legislation only, but Section 7(b) of Military Order 378 also gives the military courts wide-ranging jurisdiction to hear offenses totally unrelated to those matters. Offenses prosecuted in the courts include traffic violations, as well as offenses stemming from nonviolent assembly, and nearly all forms of civic and political expression and association. Military Order 378 also provides shockingly broad territorial jurisdiction to the military courts, which is not restricted to offenses that were prima facie committed within the OPT itself, but also includes offenses committed anywhere else.

 

o    Substantial fair trial issues also remain, with partial or total circumvention of the following rights, among others: the prompt notice of criminal charges; the right to prepare an effective defense; the right to trial without undue delay; the right to interpretation and translation; the privilege against self incrimination; a presumption of innocence; the right to call and examine witnesses; and, the right to an independent and impartial judiciary.

 

•    All but one of the more than 17 prisons, four interrogation centers and three provisional detention centers where Israel detains and interrogates Palestinian prisoners are located inside Israel. Moreover, the one prison located inside the 1967 borders of the West Bank, Ofer, is still located inside an Israeli military base, on the Israeli side of the Annexation Wall, and is therefore similarly inaccessible to Palestinians from the West Bank. This is a direct violation of Article 76 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which states that an Occupying Power must detain residents of occupied territory in prisons inside the occupied territory. Conversely, Israel’s continued colonization of the OPT with its own citizens is in violation of Article 49 of the Fourth Convention, which provides that the Occupying Power must not transfer parts of its own civilian population into the occupied territory.

 

o    The practical consequences of this system carry additional implications under the Conventions, in that many Palestinian prisoners do not receive family visits as their relatives are denied permits to enter Israel on “security grounds”. Since the Hamas takeover of Gaza in 2007, relatives of prisoners and detainees who reside in Gaza have been prevented from visiting their family members held in Israeli detention in violation of respect for their family rights, enshrined in Article 27 of the Fourth Convention.

 

•    Although the Geneva Conventions prohibit torture and cruel or degrading treatment, and Israel’s own High Court outlawed the use of torture in its landmark 1999 decision in The Public Committee Against Torture v. The Government of Israel, unlawful interrogation techniques remain in use in Israel. The methods of torture and ill-treatment most frequently alleged to take place during interrogation include: prolonged constraint of movement in an uncomfortable position causing physical pain, (such as tying the suspect to a chair with the hands behind the back, throughout hours or days of interrogation); sleep deprivation; beatings and long periods of solitary confinement in small, windowless and, often, cold cells. Less common since the 1999 High Court ruling, but still allowed to continue, are the so-called ‘military interrogation’ techniques, which are applied in combination with the methods already mentioned above. These techniques primarily involve the use of painful stress positions such as the “banana” position, where the detainee is bent backwards over the seat of a chair causing pain to the back, or the “frog” position where the detainee is forced to stand for prolonged periods against a wall with bended knees. Detainees also report the use of tight handcuffs placed on the upper arm for extended periods.

 

•    On 27 December 2008, Israel launched an aggression they termed “Operation Cast Lead,” a large-scale aerial and ground offensive in the Gaza Strip, which killed at least 1,380 Palestinians, including 431 children, and left more than 5,380 wounded. The Israeli military attacks also resulted in the widespread destruction of civilian and commercial infrastructure, including homes, schools, factories and mosques. Israel displayed a contemptuous disregard for international humanitarian law during this illegal offensive, utilizing human shields and displaying a disproportionate and often indiscriminate use of force against densely populated civilian areas throughout the Gaza Strip. The ongoing blockade of the Gaza Strip – which entered its third year in June 2009 – and the high degree of control exerted over the civilian population have precipitated a humanitarian crisis of unprecedented proportions and belie any assertions by Israel that the area is independent and no longer an Israeli-occupied territory.

 

Addameer therefore urges Israel to comply immediately with all provisions of the Geneva Conventions in the entirety of the OPT. Addameer further urges the High Contracting Parties to reconvene to establish immediate and effective measures that can be taken under the framework of the UN to ensure Israel’s compliance with its legal obligations and to bring to an end the violations of international humanitarian law currently being committed with impunity in the OPT. Addameer lastly urges individual initiatives by High Contracting Parties aimed at monitoring compliance by Israel and ensuring respect for the Fourth Geneva Convention under Article 1, and at holding perpetrators of grave breaches responsible under Article 146.

 

For more information, please contact:

Addameer Prisoner and Human Rights Association
Tel/Fax: +972 (0)2 296 0446/+972 (0)2 296 0447
Email: [email protected]

ADDAMEER (Arabic for conscience) Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association (Addameer) is a Palestinian non-governmental, civil institution which focuses on human rights issues. Established in 1992 by a group of activists interested in human rights, the organization’s activities focus on offering support for Palestinian prisoners, advocating for the rights of political prisoners, and working to end torture through monitoring, legal procedures and solidarity campaigns.