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Human Rights Council concludes Special Session on the human rights situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory 

ROUNDUP

23 July 2014

Establishes Independent, International Commission of Inquiry for the Occupied Palestinian Territory

The Human Rights Council today established an independent, international commission of inquiry to investigate all violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and concluded its Special Session on the human rights situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem.

In the resolution, adopted by a vote of 29 States in favour, 1 against and 17 abstentions, the Council condemned in the strongest terms the widespread, systematic and gross violations of international human rights and fundamental freedoms arising from the Israeli military operations carried out in the Occupied Palestinian Territory since 13 June 2014 that may amount to international crimes, directly resulting in the killing of more than 650 Palestinians, most of them civilians and more than 170 of whom were children, the injury of more than 4,000 people and the wanton destruction of homes, vital infrastructure and public properties.

In the resolution, the Council decided to urgently dispatch an independent, international commission of inquiry to investigate all violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, particularly in the occupied Gaza Strip, in the context of the military operations conducted since 13 June 2014, and to report to the Council at its twenty-eighth session.

The opening meeting of the Special Session heard keynote statements by Navi Pillay, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights; Kyung-wha Kang, Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator; Lance Bartholomeusz, Director of Legal Affairs of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East; and Makarim Wibisono, Special Rapporteur for the situation of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. A summary of their statements can be found here. A summary of the second meeting of the Special Session can be found here.

This was the twenty-first Special Session of the Human Rights Council. Documentation relating to the Special Session, including the resolution, is available on the Human Rights Council webpage. The twenty-seventh regular session of the Human Rights Council will take place from 8 to 26 September 2014.

www.amnesty.org.uk/actions/gaza-israel-stop-arms?from=issues

Fire them off an email , receive this......
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Dear             ,

Thank you for emailing Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond, calling for a halt to all arms sales to Israel, Hamas and other armed Palestinian groups.

With the ground invasion of Gaza under way, we expect the civilian death toll to rise in the coming days. It is vital that we immediately apply as much pressure as we can. So please take another moment to share this action with your contacts.

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You can see a copy of the letter you've emailed to the Foreign Secretary below.
Many thanks again for taking this action.

Best wishes,

Kristyan Benedict
Crisis Campaign Manager
Amnesty International UK


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Gaza Crisis: Stop arms sales

Mr Philip Hammond
Foreign Secretary
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
King Charles Street
London SW1A 2AH


Dear Foreign Secretary

I am writing to express my outrage and deep concern about the rapidly deteriorating situation in Gaza and Israel where there have been Palestinian and Israeli casualties. At least 789 Palestinians have so far been killed in attacks by Israeli forces; the vast majority of them were civilians, including many children and women.

The UK needs to play its part in seeking an end to the current crisis – so therefore I am calling on the UK to immediately suspend all current arms sales and related equipment and technology to Israel. This should also include any related dual-use technology and equipment that could facilitate war crimes and other serious violations of international law.

Amnesty members around the world are writing to their governments and are calling for a comprehensive arms embargo on all sides to the current crisis until effective safeguards are in place to prevent weapons and related equipment facilitating serious violations of international law. Too many Palestinian and Israeli civilians are suffering due to the reckless use of weapons.

I also call on the UK to ask other states to suspend all arms transfers to Israel, Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups that could fuel more war crimes and more suffering for all civilians.

I thank you for your attention to this urgent matter.

Kind regards,

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then donate if you want to / tell someone else about it / whatever......organise a mass protest / roadblock  in London maybe?, that seems to be the place where most decisions are'nt made.

Do something for f**ks sake even if its only to send an email off, dont do nothing.

It's an absolute disgrace that this is allowed to continue and that the US continue to pump so much money into funding it. I used to lecture on the Arab/Israeli conflict (over a period of 12 years) and the things that go on, but are never reported, made/make my blood boil. How is it acceptable for Israel to continue to break international law with it's illegal occupation and it's blatant system of apartheid?

I completely agree! 

You can maybe answer something for me too though! I remember reading about a negotiating technique that was used called G.R.R.I.T i think it was Graduated, Reciprocated, Reduction In Tensions or similar. Why is it never used? It seemed a great way to solve conflict and seemed to have been proven successful too. And yet apart from finding it by accident while at uni, it seems to never get any mention. 

Is it something that failed, Or as my suspicious nature believes, was it binned because it worked? Which of course, doesn't fill orders for bombs, planes and missiles. 

Dam been pissing me off for years has that question! 

Such a sickening situation. The abstaining nations should hang their heads in shame...and the USA really needs to redress its biased support of the current right wing Knesset which is currently acting out state terrorism and war crimes, from what the UN have independently reported last week.

On the other side, you have Hamas' Khaled Meshaal sitting in the safety of Qatar giving instructions to his people - whilst his civilian population is killed and maimed in their thousands.

Can someone enlighten me as to why the Palestinians have failed to find one voice? (vis-à-vis Fatah and Hamas?)

I have a couple of Israeli friends - who have both done their conscription and fought in the conflict over the years - they hated it then - and they hate the situation now. They are not proud of Israel's occupation or the manner of disproportionate use of force, but it seems that the moderate voice in Israel is being systematically dismantled.

Until the USA, Europe and the Arab States decide to stop meddling behind the scenes supplying arms to both sides, and turn those resources to truly finding a two state solution, this tragedy will sadly continue.

I'm afraid Philip Hammond is about as useful a negotiator as a goldfish out of its bowl.

I just came across the Twitter account of a 16 year old Gazan girl (@farah_Gazan). She's currently tweeting footage of flares overhead and the IDF are bombing in her neighbourhood.

This is quite surreal. I'm reading her tweets (live), and at any moment, she could be killed by an airstrike.

I have no words. I just can't.

I followed her tweets last night...harrowing stuff.

I've been following this quite a bit and it's interesting to see the public perception manifest itself and many people run to defend gaza because of the macabre videos and stories that are easily digestible in snippets from their favourite website. It's an easy position to take and it makes one feel good to voice opinions that people agree with. Plus, it must feel like a morally superior position.

I came across this article, and found it interesting, not particularly well written but drew an analogy i hadn't thought of: www.naomiragen.com/israel/dont-cry-us-israelis/

'All this criticism comes mainly from the European press: The Guardian, the BBC, papers in Italy, Norway, France, and don’t forget America: The New York Times, CNN. And I’m thinking: Gee, the British should understand. After all, they lived through the blitz, Nazis raining bombs indiscriminately down on them, the way Hamas is raining bombs down on us. And when the brave pilots of the RAF aimed their bombs at Dresden and killed 300,000 men, women and children, they didn’t throw down leaflets telling people to politely evacuate; didn’t send their soldiers to knock on doors to see if they’d followed the leaflets'

I guess it just goes to show how many layers to this there are. I'm sure someone like Martyn will come here and call me and anyone else who disagrees with him ignorant and stupid (which he did to some other poor guy who was voicing his opinion) and spout quotes about freedom and everything else he reads on democracynow.org but the truth isn't as clear cut as a leader board of death.

I feel for the innocent people in both countries who are painted with a monochrome brush by people too lazy to look into it more.

sure, i'd agree with that. i think the analogy's essence is trying to communicate that when the UK killed 300k women and children it was defense, not terror. Sure weapons are better now but i don't think analogy is trying to say that it's the same outcome/means...but the same mindset that is driving israel now drove britain in the past.

thanks for sharing good information

This is all you need to know IMHO : www.vox.com/cards/israel-palestine/1948-partition
Good old battle of the Empires still festering away 80-90 years later. But with much better weapons.
Israel should know better than this and are rightly losing the morality war but do they give a FF?

I could imagine that at the height of "the troubles" a lot of the British public would have been quite happy to see the members of those groups killed. At the cost of a lot of innocent Irish? I don't know? Thankfully, even though Britain did some very dodgy things during the 80s/90s, using airstrikes on the homes of IRA sympathisers never happened.

Hamas's rockets do appear to be rubbish. And I agree, I don't think they'd be able to launch them specifically at military targets even if they wanted to. There's an argument that can be made that Israel are quite happy for the various Palestinian militant groups to diminish their supply of rockets and explosives. While I wouldn't like my house to be hit by one, they are not effective weapons. One of those rockets might damage my house. An Israeli airstrike can destroy my house and my neighbours.

I think I read that there are more than 10 various brigades and militias that operate in the Palestinian territories. I'm guessing that it's not easy to enforce a ceasefire between all of those groups.

Many leading governments are quite happy to turn a blind eye to the bombing of civilians when it suits them.

Replace the soundtrack with this to emphasize the absurdity of it all.

Thanks for that link Quiznos Subs.

Just so you know they couldn't do anything, because the UK Veto on the UN defense council. (The UN peace Keepers were hoped for but the British army went in instead (which nationalists if I remember correctly were pleased with the idea of until it all went sour) I won't ever mention the north again, as I don't think its responsible for someone who didn't live their through the troubles to do so, regardless of the side of the divide they are on. The only reason I am commenting is to say the the comparison of the north to Palestine is very apt even though what happened up north is now completely overwhelmed by what I see in palestine