Gilad Shalit has been held by Hamas for five years © Private
By Rachel Campbell from Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Programme.
“As the days go by, we begin to despair of the day when we will see our son again. I know neither where he is held nor how he fares … or whether he is even alive.”
(Noam Shalit, Gilad Shalit’s father, addressing the UN Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, 6 July 2009)
Tomorrow marks the fifth year of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit’s captivity. Hamas’ military wing, who are holding him in a secret location in the Gaza Strip, are using him as a hostage with which to conduct their political bargaining with Israel. Since his capture from an army base in southern Israel by Palestinian armed groups on 25 June 2006, he has been denied all contact with the outside world.
Amnesty International is asking activists around the world to sign our petition to Isma’il Haniyeh, Prime Minister of the Hamas de facto administration in Gaza, urging him to alleviate the suffering of Gilad Shalit and his family by immediately complying with its obligations under international humanitarian law to ensure that he is well treated, held in humane and dignified living conditions, and to allow him to communicate with his family, including through sending and receiving letters. Treating Gilad Shalit as a hostage is a flagrant violations of these obligations as Amnesty International stressed again today together with Israeli, Palestinian and international human rights NGOs.
Continue reading ‘Held captive for 1,825 days – time to end the suffering of Gilad Shalit’
This month, Amnesty International's petition was presented to the President of the Human Rights Council © Amnesty International
By Rachel Campbell, Amnesty International Campaigner for Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories
Today, the UN Human Rights Council will meet to begin debating a crucial report on seriously flawed Israeli and Palestinian investigations into grave violations of international law committed during the 2008-2009 conflict in the Gaza Strip and southern Israel.
By the end of the week it will vote on a resolution on what should be done next. If it does the right thing, its actions could take the conflict’s victims a step closer to achieving the justice denied to them for over two years – this time at an international level.
Continue reading ‘UN body can help bring international justice for Gaza conflict victims’
Destroyed building in Gaza, 1 January 2009. © Sharif Sarhan
4 February 2009: As we leave after more than two weeks in Gaza, we are still shocked and horrified by the scale of the destruction caused by the 22-day offensive the Israeli army launched on 27 December. The task of reconstruction will be truly immense.
The main priority in our fact-finding research has been to investigate the Israeli forces’ direct and indiscriminate attacks on civilians and their homes, but, before concluding our visit, we also spent some time focusing on the wholesale destruction of factories, workshops and farms, for which it is difficult or impossible to see any possible justification. What we found was even worse than we had first realized.
Continue reading ‘The task of reconstruction will be truly immense’
1 February 2009: A 13-year-old girl who was asleep in her bed; three primary school-age boys who were carrying sugar canes; two young women on their way to a shelter in search of safety; a 13-year-old boy on his bicycle; eight secondary school students who were waiting for the school bus to take them home; an entire family sitting outside their home – these are among the many victims of missiles fired from Israeli UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles), commonly known as drones.
Here in Gaza people call the drones “zannana”, an onomatopoeic description reflecting the buzzing sound that they emit as they fly overhead. Their main function is surveillance, but, in recent years, Israeli forces have also used them to fire missiles, often to assassinate “wanted” Palestinians.
Continue reading ‘Faulty intelligence, wanton recklessness, or a combination of the two’
