REPORT: U.N. Human Rights Chief: Israel's Blockade of Gaza Illegal

Israel's state-sponsored injustice

Watching the criminal collusion of settlers and the army in Susiya, it's clear this is a microcosm of an indefensible situation

Within an hour of arriving at the Palestinian hamlet of Susiya, the local settlers decided to make an unwelcome appearance on the farmers' land, shattering the calm of dusk as the sun set over the Judean hills. The intruders drove their sheep all the way to the edge of the Palestinians' encampment, encouraging their animals to gorge themselves on the sparse flora belonging to their neighbours' flocks.

Watching a crime take place is never pleasant for onlookers, but the experience is made infinitely worse when there is no recourse whatsoever to ameliorate the situation. In more tolerant and equitable societies, witnesses can pick up the phone and call the authorities, in the hope and expectation that the police will intervene on behalf of the victim and right the wrong being committed. But when the very security forces meant to deal out justice are standing alongside the criminals and providing armed cover for their actions, the sense of disbelief and disaffection with the status quo is off the scale.

In this case, the two settlers were aided and abetted by a pair of M16-toting Israel Defence Force guards, who stood menacingly in position to keep the distraught Palestinian farmers at bay; the hopeless cries of opposition by the landowners falling on deaf ears, the stony-faced soldiers gazed on impassively and let the settlers brazenly steal the crops from under their noses. Neither the farmers, their families, the NGO workers staying with them nor our group of eight visiting observers could do a thing to prevent the theft – and the micro-story on this remote patch of scrubland embodies the macro situation across the region as a whole.

In the Book of Samuel, the prophet Nathan tells King David a parable, during his rebuking of the king for his underhand pursuit of Bathsheva. He speaks of two neighbours – one man very rich, with a flock of a thousand sheep, the other dirt poor, with just one lamb in his possession, which he loves as though it were his own child. When a guest comes to visit the rich man, the wealthy farmer goes next door and steals the other man's only sheep, which he slaughters and serves to his friend for a meal. A totally unnecessary theft, a totally heartless and selfish act – and, as I've written before, the Israeli authorities repeatedly behave like that rich farmer.

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UN official: Evidence that Israel abused human rights in Gaza
By Reuters

There is significant evidence that Israeli forces violated international law and human rights in their invasion of Gaza between late December and mid-January, the United Nations human rights chief said on Friday.

A report by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay lambasted the "nearly total impunity" for the violations.

The already critical human rights situation in the occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) deteriorated further during the war, she said in the report, the first of a series of periodic reports ordered by the UN Human Rights Council in January during Israel's "Operation Cast Lead."

The 34-page report is one of two - together with a forthcoming one by South African jurist Richard Goldstone who has been conducting hearings in Gaza - that will be presented to the council next month.

"Significant prima facie evidence indicates that serious violations of international humanitarian law as well as gross human rights violations occurred during the military operations of 27 December 2008 to 18 January 2009, which were compounded by the blockade that the population of Gaza endured in the months prior to Operation Cast Lead and which continues," Pillay said.

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