Israel Palestine Conflict Or The Israel’s ‘’Illegal Occupation And Violence Against Palestinians’’?

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International law is crystal clear: annexation and territorial conquest are prohibited by the Charter of the United Nations. Since 1967, Israeli forces have ruled over the occupied Palestinian territory. Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem are among the territories that have been divided. Gaza Strip is a little coastal region that shares a border with Egypt to the south. The kidney-shaped region to the east is known as the West Bank. It is named after the Jordan River since it is located west of its banks. On the Palestinian side of the 1949 Green Line is East Jerusalem. In the West Bank and East Jerusalem, there are three million Palestinians living. Israeli settlements are Jewish neighbourhoods erected on Palestinian territory. In the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, there are between 600,000 and 750,00 Israeli settlers residing in at least 250 settlements. According to international law, Israeli settlements are unlawful because they infringe on the Fourth Geneva Convention, which forbids an occupying force from relocating its people within the territory it occupies. Under Donald Trump’s administration, the US announced in 2019 that Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian territory were “not necessarily unlawful,” reversing decades of US policy. Compared to Israel’s population, the number of Israeli settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem is increasing more quickly. In the West Bank there were 463,535 registered settlers as of 2020, while in East Jerusalem there were 220,200. More over five million Palestinian refugees are officially registered, the majority of whom live outside of these camps. The world’s oldest unsolved refugee issue is the predicament of Palestinian refugees.

In the past, Israel has annexed two areas by itself. Israel refers to the territory it has annexed as ‘’applying Israeli sovereignty’’. The annexation of the Golan Heights by Israel was recognized by the US in 2019. Israel has been enforcing a maritime and air embargo on the Gaza Strip since 2007. Israel has attacked the Palestinian territories three times since 2008, killing thousands of people—mostly civilians. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, Israeli soldiers murdered at least 170 Palestinians in the West Bank and the occupied East Jerusalem in 2022, including more than 30 children. There have also been at least 9,000 injuries. Observers, diplomats, and rights organisations have expressed alarm over Israel’s excessive use of lethal force in the West Bank in 2022, which has resulted in the high death toll. Israeli soldiers frequently “use guns against Palestinians on mere suspicion or as a precaution, in contravention of international standards,” according to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Shireen Abu Akleh, an experienced journalist for Al Jazeera, was killed by gunfire on May 11 when she was documenting a military attack on the Jenin refugee camp. Abu Akleh, a 51-year-old Palestinian-American TV reporter for Al Jazeera Arabic, has spent more than 25 years covering Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian lands. Her murder sparked a global uproar and caused shockwaves throughout the globe. Israeli legislative elections were conducted for the seventh time in less than four years in 2022. The results have led to the formation of the most far-right administration in the nation’s 74-year history, even if they appear to have momentarily put a stop to Israel’s protracted political instability. 2022 marks the sixth year in a row that the number of Israeli settler assaults in the occupied West Bank has increased.
It is 2023 and very much clear that this cannot be called as the Israel-Palestine ‘’conflict anymore’’. It is the unlawful act by the Israel and illegal annexation accompanied with the human rights viltions. The world should no more remail silent.

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Author

Hamna Seyyed

Research Associate, Pakistan House

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