Major escalation taking place right now in Israel & Palestine, with significant human rights implications. @hrw is investigating these events. Some preliminary takeaways based on what we know now & years of our reporting. 1/7
Israeli gov moving to evict Palestinians in Sheikh Jarrah under law allowing Jewish Israelis to takeover their homes based on prior ownership claim. This would displace families who are refugees barred by law from reclaiming land gov took from them as recent @hrw report shows 2/7
Planned Sheikh Jarrah evictions stem from an Israeli govt policy of “maintaining a solid Jewish majority” in Jerusalem (& target demographic ratios btw Jewish Israelis & Palestinians there it has set out) & underscore reality of apartheid that millions of Palestinians face 3/7
Israeli authorities’ brutal treatment of protesters in occupied East Jerusalem, including in/around al-Aqsa mosque, stem from a systematic practice of excessive force & impunity for serious abuses. Its actions here seek to quell demonstrations & Palestinian mass mobilization 4/7
Rockets indiscriminately fired by Palestinian armed groups towards Israeli population centers endanger the lives, homes & properties of tens of thousands of Israeli civilians. These attacks are unjustified & are war crimes, as @hrw has extensively documented over years 5/7
Israel's use of explosive weapons with wide area effects in densely populated Gaza on population living in open-air prison for 14 years bound to result in civilian harm. Alarming reports of many Palestinians killed today. @hrw has documented many Israeli war crimes over years 6/7
These events highlight need to end impunity for serious abuses & for @IntlCrimCourt to investigate & prosecute those implicated. Cycles of escalations will persist so long as intl community continues to fail to take the human rights measures situation of this gravity warrants 7/7
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Israel's April 1 strike killing 7 @WCKitchen aid workers was no anomaly—new @hrw report finds that Israel has repeatedly struck known locations of aid convoys & premises. 250+ aid workers have been killed since Oct 7. Perpetrators must be held to account.🧵 hrw.org/news/2024/05/1…
We @hrw documented 8 cases in which aid organizations or UN agencies shared the GPS coordinates of an aid convoy or premises with Israeli authorities & yet Israeli forces attacked them without warning. These Israeli attacks killed 15 people—including 2 kids—& injured 16 others.
On Nov 18, Israeli forces fired on convoy of five marked @MSF cars, killing two people. MSF coordinated their movements w the Israeli army & followed the route they designated. There were no apparent military targets in area. MSF requested an explanation, but received no reply.
Breaking: new @hrw report documents another apparent Israeli war crime—Oct 31 strike on central Gaza apartment building killing 106+ civilians, including 54 kids, many playing football. No evidence of military target—making strike unlawfully indiscriminate hrw.org/news/2024/04/0…
350 people lived in building—including 150 who were displaced. When Israel struck, many kids were playing football outside building; others gathered to charge their phones in rare grocery store that had power amid Israeli electricity cuts. Members of 14 families killed in instant
This is one of 31000+ Israeli strikes. More Palestinians killed on average per day since Oct 7 than in this strike. Israel's blocking of entry to investigators & killing of journalists makes deep-dive investigations difficult, but this one points to many yet unreported war crimes
This week's momentous Int'l Court of Justice hearings on legal consequences of Israel's 57-year occupation highlight the growing global consensus that Israel's repression of Palestinians amounts to apartheid. A🧵of excerpts from the proceedings (to be updated as statements go up)
South Africa "beseeches @CIJ_ICJ to examine the institutionalized régime of discriminatory laws, policies & practices applied by Israel alongside the definition of the crime of apartheid & to find that Israel subjects Palestinians to what constitutes an apartheid régime" (Feb 20)
Saudi Arabia to @CIJ_ICJ (Feb 20): "There can be no serious debate that Israeli policies & practices also amount to racial discrimination & are tantamount to apartheid, in grave violation of the Palestinian people’s human rights."
Israeli authorities are signaling their intent to commit mass atrocities. They must be stopped. A thread 1/10
The Hamas-led massacre shook Israelis to their core—many know someone killed when fighters shot up crowds, taken as hostages/paraded about or narrowly survived by barricading themselves as militants infiltrated homes. They committed heinous crimes & should be held to account 2/10
But that’s not what Israeli officials are calling for—they want revenge, using incendiary language & suggesting that the entire population of Gaza—2.2+ million people, half of whom are children—should be collectively punished. Some examples 3/10
With today’s landmark @amnesty report, Israeli apartheid is now a matter of wall-to-wall consensus. As more & more recognize reality for what it is, our challenge is to take action to change it & #EndIsraeliApartheid 1/10
Amnesty thoroughly exposes a “system which operates w varying levels of intensity & repression based on Palestinians’ status in the separate enclaves where [they] live.. but ultimately seeks to establish & maintain Jewish hegemony wherever Israel exercises effective control” 2/10
Amnesty’s findings echo those of leading Palestinian & Israeli rights orgs, @hrw & others: that Israeli govt committing the crime of apartheid against millions of Palestinians & that int’l community should end complicity & hold perpetrators to account 3/10
Breaking: @hrw finds that Israeli strikes in May killed scores of civilians in Gaza, wiped out entire families w/ no evident military targets in area & amount to apparent war crimes that @IntlCrimCourt should probe. Hear the harrowing accounts of survivors hrw.org/news/2021/07/2…
In one strike @hrw investigated, guided missile witnesses saw approach from Israel killed 6 kids as they played & 2 adults near Beit Hanoun. Israel said it was a Palestinian rocket, but offered no evidence & included one victim among ppl they said were killed. All were civilians.
In another, a US-made guided bomb destroyed a building in al-Shati refugee camp, one of world’s most densely populated areas, killing 2 women & 8 of their young kids as they slept, leaving only one surviving kids from each family. @hrw found no evidence of military target there.