UN expert calls Palestine an ‘open-air prison’ amid Israeli occupation

London: A UN expert claimed that the Israeli military occupation of Palestine has made it into an "open-air prison" where Palestinians are "constantly confined, surveilled, and disciplined."

Francesca Albanese, the UN's special rapporteur on human rights in Palestine, claimed that throughout Israel's 56-year rule of the Occupied Territories, it has suppressed fundamental human rights and utilised mass incarceration as a tool to break resistance.

According to the research, the Israeli military has legislated, enforced, and decided upon authoritarian laws that have resulted in the arrest and detention of more than 800,000 Palestinians, including children as young as 12, since 1967, Arab News reported.

According to Albanese, 1,100 Palestinians are being imprisoned without a charge or a trial out of 5,000 total detainees, 160 of whom are minors.

According to her study, Palestinians have been unjustly jailed and denied the fundamental right to protection that all citizens are entitled to, all for the simple act of expressing their thoughts, attending events, or making unauthorised political speeches.

According to the report, Israeli authorities frequently brutalise Palestinian detainees while in custody, arrest them without warrants, hold them without charge or trial, or even assume them to be guilty in the lack of any evidence.

“Under Israeli occupation, generations of Palestinians have endured widespread and systematic arbitrary deprivation of liberty, often for the simplest acts of life and the exercise of fundamental human rights,” Albanese said as she presented the report at UN headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland on Monday.

Although she does not support any acts of violence committed by Palestinians during the decades of Israeli occupation, she claimed that the majority of criminal convictions have been the result of a "litany of violations of international law," raising concerns about the reliability of Israeli authorities' handling of legal proceedings.

“Mass incarceration serves the purpose of quelling peaceful opposition against the occupation, protecting the Israeli military and settlers, and ultimately facilitating settler-colonial encroachment,” Albanese said.

“Bundling Palestinians as a collective ‘security threat,’ Israel has used draconian military orders to punish the exercise of basic rights. These measures have been used as tools to subjugate an entire population, depriving them of self-determination, enforcing racial domination and advancing territorial acquisition by force.”

The report provides numerous examples of severe mistreatment suffered by Palestinian detainees while held in Israeli military custody, including torture, incarceration in filthy and overcrowded cells, deprivation of sleep and food, negligence of medical care, severe and prolonged beatings, and other forms of cruel treatment.

It states: “The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, which has addressed cases of Palestinians since 1992, has repeatedly affirmed that widespread and systematic arbitrary deprivation of liberty may amount to a crime against humanity.”

Albanese alleged severe human rights abuses by Israeli authorities that amounted to "war crimes" and urged the International Criminal Court to look investigate the allegations.

She also urged UN members to uphold their duties by refusing to support or recognise Israel's occupation and the gradual annexation of Palestinian territory. She also urged them to use all "diplomatic, political, and economic measures" permitted by the UN Charter to end the situation and ensure those responsible for violations are brought to justice.

“The widespread and systematic arbitrariness of the occupation’s carceral regime is yet another expression of the apartheid imposed on the Palestinians, and strengthens the need to end it immediately,” Albanese said.

“The mass and arbitrary deprivation of liberty that Palestinians have been collectively subjected to for decades aims to protect Israel’s annexation of Palestinian territory, a project with unlawful aims pursued by unlawful means.

“This macroscopic violation of fundamental principles of international law cannot be remedied by addressing some of its most brutal consequences. For Israel’s carceral regime to end, and its inherent apartheid with it, its illegal occupation of Palestine must end.”

Albanese claimed that despite an invitation from the Palestinian Authority, Israeli authorities will not permit her to visit the Occupied Territories to conduct her research and conduct interviews.

As a result of her work documenting and reporting on violations of Palestinian rights under Israeli occupation, she claimed that she has also been the target of public vilification and intimidation by Israeli authorities and pro-Israeli groups worldwide. However, in a message posted on Twitter, she insisted that she is "unfazed" and "cannot be distracted" by the campaign against her.

She claimed that Israeli violations of Palestinian rights, including the illegal settlement construction on Palestinian property, "appear to be part of a plan" to de-Palestinianize the occupied lands. Such a proposal poses a threat to the very survival of the Palestinians as a people and as a national cohesive group, she continued.

The UN Human Rights Council has specific procedures, which include special rapporteurs. They are independent specialists who perform their job voluntarily, are not employed by the UN, and are not compensated for their efforts.