ISRAEL’S APARTHEID

1 ISRAEL S APARTHEID AGAINST PALESTINIANS CRUEL SYSTEM OF DOMINATION AND crime AGAINST humanity Amnesty International 2022 Except where otherwise noted, content in this document is licensed under a Creative Commons (attribution, non-commercial, no derivatives, international ) licence. For more information please visit the permissions page on our website: Where material is attributed to a copyright owner other than Amnesty International this material is not subject to the Creative Commons licence. Cover photo: Palestinian protesters walk towards the Erez crossing, the only passenger crossing between Gaza and Israel, during a demonstration in the northern Gaza Strip on 18 September 2018 Said Khatib / AFP via Getty Images First published in 2020 by Amnesty International Ltd Peter Benenson House, 1 Easton Street London WC1X 0DW, UK Index: MDE 15/5141/2022 Original language: English Amnesty International is a movement of 10 million people which mobilizes the humanity in everyone and campaigns for change so we can all enjoy our human rights.

2 Our vision is of a world where those in power keep their promises, respect international law and are held to account. We are independent of any government, political ideology, economic interest or religion and are funded mainly by our membership and individual donations. We believe that acting in solidarity and compassion with people everywhere can change our societies for the better. ISRAEL S APARTHEID AGAINST PALESTINIANS CRUEL SYSTEM OF DOMINATION AND crime AGAINST humanity Amnesty International 3 CONTENTS APARTHEID IN INTERNATIONAL LAW 6 INTENT TO OPPRESS AND DOMINATE PALESTINIANS 6 TERRITORIAL FRAGMENTATION AND LEGAL SEGREGATION 8 LEGAL SEGREGATION AND CONTROL 9 USE OF MILITARY RULE TO CONTROL AND DISPOSSESS 9 DENIAL OF NATIONALITY.

3 RESIDENCE AND FAMILY LIFE 10 DISRUPTION OF FAMILY LIFE 11 RESTRICTIONS ON MOVEMENT 11 RESTRICTIONS ON RIGHT TO POLITICAL PARTICIPATION 12 DISPOSESSION OF LAND AND PROPERTY 13 DISCRIMINATORY ZONING AND PLANNING POLICIES 15 SUPPRESSION OF PALESTINANS HUMAN DEVELOPMENT 16 A SYSTEM OF APARTHEID 19 crimes against humanity 20 FORCIBLE TRANSFERS 20 ADMINISTRATIVE DETENTION, TORTURE AND OTHER ILL-TREATMENT 21 UNLAWFUL KILLINGS AND SERIOUS INJURIES 22 DENIAL OF BASIC RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS, AND PERSECUTION 22 SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS AND INTENT TO OPPRESS AND DOMINATE 22 CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS 23 ISRAEL S APARTHEID AGAINST PALESTINIANS CRUEL SYSTEM OF DOMINATION AND crime AGAINST humanity Amnesty International 4 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Israel is not a state of all its [but rather] the nation-state of the Jewish people and only them Message posted online in March 2019 by Israel s then prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu On 18 May 2021, Palestinians across cities and villages in Israel and the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip closed their offices, shops, restaurants and schools, abandoned construction sites, and refused to report to work for the whole day.

4 In a display of unity not seen for decades, they defied the territorial fragmentation and segregation they face in their daily lives and observed a general strike to protest their shared repression by Israel. The strike was sparked by the Israeli authorities plan to evict seven Palestinian families from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah, a Palestinian residential neighbourhood near the Old City in East Jerusalem, which has been repeatedly targeted by Israel s sustained campaign to expand illegal settlements and transfer Jewish settlers. To stop the threatened evictions, the Palestinian families launched a campaign on social media under the hashtag #SaveSheikhJarrah attracting worldwide attention and mobilizing protesters on the ground.

5 Israeli security forces responded to the protests with the same excessive force they have been using to stifle Palestinian dissent for decades. They arbitrarily arrested peaceful demonstrators, threw sound and stun grenades at crowds, dispersed them with excessive force and skunk water, and fired concussion grenades at worshippers and protesters gathered in the Al-Aqsa mosque compound. The brutal repression generated a wave of solidarity elsewhere in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) and amongst Palestinian citizens of Israel, across the Green Line (the demarcation line set out in the 1949 Armistice Agreements between Israel and its neighbours that served as the de facto borders of the State of Israel until 1967).

6 In Israel, police forces orchestrated a discriminatory campaign against Palestinian citizens involving mass arbitrary arrests of, and unlawful force against, peaceful protesters, while failing to protect Palestinians from organized assaults by Jewish attackers following the outbreak of intercommunal violence. Meanwhile, armed hostilities broke out on 10 May as Palestinian armed groups fired indiscriminate rockets into Israel from Gaza. Israel responded with a ruthless 11-day military offensive against the territory targeting residential homes without effective advance warning, damaging essential infrastructure, displacing tens of thousands of people and killing and injuring hundreds of others. It thereby exacerbated the chronic humanitarian crisis caused primarily by Israel s long-standing unlawful blockade.

7 For many Palestinians who observed the general strike in Israel and the OPT, these discriminatory and repressive actions in East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip and Palestinian cities and towns, as well as mixed cities with Jewish and Palestinian populations, in Israel represented different manifestations of an overall system of oppression and domination by Israel. This system, which operates with varying levels of intensity and repression based on Palestinians status in the separate enclaves where Palestinians live today, and violates their rights in different ways, ultimately seeks to establish and maintain Jewish hegemony wherever Israel exercises effective control. By coming out to protest, they were expressing unity, and a rejection of Israel s fragmentation of the Palestinian people.

8 A manifesto published on social media by some activists that same day denounced long-standing Israeli practices and policies that tried to turn [Palestinians] into different societies, each living apart, each in its own separate prison . ISRAEL S APARTHEID AGAINST PALESTINIANS CRUEL SYSTEM OF DOMINATION AND crime AGAINST humanity Amnesty International 5 Palestinians have been calling for an understanding of Israel s rule as APARTHEID for over two decades and have been at the forefront of advocacy in that regard at the UN. Over time, research conducted by Palestinian human rights organizations, and more recently some Israeli human rights groups, has contributed to broader international recognition of Israel s treatment of Palestinians as APARTHEID .

9 Yet states, particularly Israel s Western allies, have been reluctant to heed these calls, and have refused to take any meaningful action against Israel. Meanwhile, Palestinian organizations and human rights defenders who have been leading anti- APARTHEID advocacy and campaigning efforts have faced growing Israeli repression for years as punishment for their work. In October 2021, the Israeli authorities escalated their attacks on Palestinian civil society even further by misusing counterterrorism legislation to outlaw six prominent organizations, including three major human rights groups, to shut down their offices and to detain and prosecute their employees. In parallel, Israel has subjected Israeli organizations denouncing APARTHEID and other serious human rights violations against Palestinians to smears and delegitimization campaigns.

10 Building on a growing body of work, Amnesty International has documented and analysed Israel s institutionalized and systematic discrimination against Palestinians within the framework of the definition of APARTHEID under international law. This has aimed to determine whether discriminatory and exclusionary Israeli laws, policies and practices against Palestinians amount to APARTHEID as a violation of public international law, a serious human rights violation and a crime against humanity . It has done so by firstly determining Israel s intent to oppress and dominate all Palestinians by establishing its hegemony across Israel and the OPT, including through means of demography, and maximizing resources for the benefit of its Jewish population at the expense of Palestinians.