2 February 2022

4/2022

The Independent Commission for Human Rights (ICHR) welcomes the report released by Amnesty International, Israel’s apartheid against Palestinians: Cruel system of domination and crime against humanity. The ICHR is of the view that the report, published by a highly credible international organisation, builds on and confirms earlier international reports on the same topic. This indicates an international legal consensus that the occupying Power is running and exercising a system of apartheid. The world must stand against this system.

The report is grounded in concrete facts on policies implemented by the occupying Power against Palestinians in all their places of residence. These are designed to perpetuate a system of domination over Palestinians. To this effect, Israel maintains inhuman policies, particularly dispossession of land and property, unlawful killings, forcible transfer, severe restrictions on freedom of movement, denial of right to equal nationality and status, and treatment of Palestinians on the basis of discriminatory and racist administrative laws and regulations.

Based on the facts outlined by the report, Amnesty International comes to the conclusion that violations committed by the occupying Power constitute apartheid and a crime against humanity as defined by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid. The ICHR believes that these facts require that the ICC consider the crime of apartheid in the context of current investigations into the occupied Palestinian territory. The ICC should also exercise universal jurisdiction over persons reasonably suspected of committing the crime of apartheid under International Law.

The ICHR stresses the need that the abuses perpetrated by the occupying Power in the Palestinian territory occupied in 1967 as well as in the 1948 territory be documented within the framework of the system of apartheid. The ICHR further underlies the importance for the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates to prepare and submit a file to the ICC on the crime of apartheid committed by the occupying Power against Palestinians. The ICHR calls for promoting international, official, and civil society advocacy efforts so that third states and international organisations adopt recommendations of the Amnesty International report.

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