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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Palestinian Organisations Send
Submission to the Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or
Arbitrary Executions on Israel’s Continued Oppression of Palestinians
Beyond Their Killing</h1>
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<div class="gmail-reader-estimated-time" dir="ltr">February 18, 2024<br></div>
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<p><img src="https://www.addameer.org/sites/default/files/styles/scale_ima/public/upload/news/convers/mass-grave-1708167326.jpeg?itok=7t6W8Wda" width="391" height="220" alt="" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 0px;">
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<p>18-02-2024
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<div><p>On 6 February 2024, in response to a call for input <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/calls-for-input/2024/call-input-protection-dead-persons-and-their-human-remains-including-victims">issued</a> by
the United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or
arbitrary executions for his upcoming report on the protection of dead
persons and their human remains, including of victims of potentially
unlawful killings, Al-Haq, Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights
Association, Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), Al Mezan Center
for Human Rights, and Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Center
(JLAC) sent a joint submission underscoring Israel’s continued and
systematic oppression of Palestinians beyond their killing.</p>
<p>Specifically, the submission highlights the mutilation of Palestinian
bodies by the Israeli occupying forces (IOF); the withholding of
Palestinian bodies, including those of prisoners and detainees; the use
of mass graves especially during the <a href="https://www.alhaq.org/advocacy/22509.html">ongoing genocide</a> in
the Gaza Strip; and digging of Palestinian graves and cemeteries. The
submission further places such draconian policies and practices within
the broader context of Israel’s <a href="https://www.alhaq.org/advocacy/20931.html">Zionist settler-colonialism and apartheid regime</a>.</p>
<p>Despite the International Court of Justice’s provisional measures
order issued on 26 January 2024, Israel has persisted in over a
four-month-long campaign in Gaza, <a href="https://www.ochaopt.org/content/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-flash-update-110">resulting</a> in
the killing of at least 27,365 Palestinians, primarily women and
children, and injuring 66,630 others, as of 4 February 2024.
Simultaneously, between 7 October 2023 and 4 February 2024, the IOF and
Israeli settlers killed 373 Palestinians, including 95 children and
three women, in the occupied West Bank, including eastern Jerusalem.</p>
<p>Beyond the immediate harm of extrajudicial killings, Israel’s
policies extend to the encroachment upon Palestinian dignity,
exemplified through the desecration and mutilation of Palestinian bodies
including by <a href="https://www.alhaq.org/advocacy/16549.html">slamming, picking up, and dragging Palestinians by bulldozers</a>, and <a href="https://www.alhaq.org/advocacy/21158.html">running over Palestinians</a>,
and the withholding of Palestinian bodies, including children, to be
used as bargaining chips, amounting to prohibited collective punishment.</p>
<p>As of 6 February 2024, and according to the documentation of JLAC,
the Israeli occupying authorities are withholding the bodies of 205
Palestinian residents of the West Bank, including 26 children, two women
and 17 prisoners or detainees; indefinitely depriving them of dignified
burial. In addition, 28-year-old Waseem Abu Al-Heija, a Palestinian
with Israeli citizenship, was killed on 29 January 2024, and his body
has been withheld by the Israeli authorities since then. Moreover, since
7 October 2023, Israel has been withholding the bodies of hundreds of
killed Palestinian residents of the Gaza Strip, with the exact count
unverifiable due to constraints imposed by Israel. According to the
latest information available to the organisations, as reported, 291
decomposed Palestinian bodies, previously withheld by Israeli
authorities, have been released and buried in mass graves in Gaza.</p>
<p>Indeed, mass graves stand as a grim testament to Israel’s colonial
oppression against Palestinians since its establishment, including
during the <a href="https://forensic-architecture.org/investigation/executions-and-mass-graves-in-tantura-23-may-1948"><i>Nakba </i></a><a href="https://forensic-architecture.org/investigation/executions-and-mass-graves-in-tantura-23-may-1948">of 1948</a>. The burial of Palestinians, often unidentified, in <a href="https://www.ochaopt.org/content/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-flash-update-48">mass graves</a> remains
a common practice in Gaza since 7 October 2023, due to the extensive
and unprecedented level of Israel’s killing, to the extent that even
hospital courtyards have been <a href="https://www.ochaopt.org/content/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-flash-update-40">transformed</a> into
sites of mass burial. Furthermore, especially in IOF-deployed areas,
where danger is compounded, the bodies of thousands of killed
Palestinians, including women and children, <a href="https://www.alhaq.org/advocacy/22385.html">remain trapped under the rubble</a>, as the IOF prevents rescue and medical teams from reaching these areas, leaving the bodies to decompose.</p>
<p>The submission further highlights the Israeli military’s targeting
and disregarding the sanctity of Palestinian lives and memories during
the ongoing genocide in Gaza including through the reported bombing and
bulldozing of at least <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/14/world/middleeast/gaza-cemeteries-damage-israel.html">six graveyards and cemeteries</a>, as well as the excavating and exhuming of <a href="https://www.alhaq.org/advocacy/22388.html">a mass grave</a> in
Kamal Adwan Hospital where 26 Palestinian bodies had been buried.
Notably, this pattern of desecrating Palestinian cemeteries is not a new
practice, as Israel had previously engaged in similar actions in
al-Yousofiyya Cemetery in Jerusalem in 2021 for the purposes of <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2021/10/31/palestinians-vow-to-defend-graves-in-jerusalem-cemetery">establishing a national park</a> over parts of the cemetery.</p>
<p>Finally, underscoring that the Israeli judicial system is itself a
tool by which the pervasive impunity imposed and enjoyed by Israel is
maintained and entrenched, the joint submission urged the Special
Rapporteur to:</p>
<ul><li>Recognise that Israel’s systematic and institutionalised excessive
use of force and withholding of bodies contribute to the maintenance of
Israel’s settler-colonialism and apartheid;</li><li>Address the ongoing Israeli genocide against Palestinians in Gaza,
including the high level of killings, which forced the creation of mass
graves, denying Palestinians safe and dignified burial, and the Israeli <a name="_Hlk159020935" id="gmail-_Hlk159020935">military’s </a>digging of cemeteries; and</li><li>Urge UN Member States to reconstitute the UN Special Committee
against Apartheid and the UN Centre against Apartheid as critical steps
towards ending Israel’s institutionalised impunity, settler-colonialism
and apartheid.</li></ul>
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