Birzeit University Human Rights Record
On February 25, Baruch Goldstein, a resident of the Jewish settlement of Kiryat Arba located in the Hebron area, walked into the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron and shot in cold blood more than 25 Palestinian Muslim worshippers performing early morning prayers. Dozens more worshippers were wounded by Goldstein's gunfire. The Israeli army shot and killed over 20 Palestinians in subsequent clashes that erupted as news of the massacre in the Ibrahimi Mosque spread, and hundreds more have been injured. It is with great sorrow and pain that Birzeit University extends its deepest condolences to the families and friends of those killed in the Hebron massacre and its bloody aftermath. Few words can assuage the outrage and grief inspired by such a vile act of racial hatred.
The massacre at the Ibrahimi mosque in Hebron makes it painfully clear that the presence of Israeli settlers in illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories is anathema to real peace between Palestinians and Israelis. In addition to acts of physical violence perpetrated by Israeli settlers against Palestinians, testimony heard before the Shamgar Commission (the Israeli state inquiry into the massacre) has exposed a deeply disturbing system of double standards in the application of Israeli law towards Jewish and Arab residents of the occupied territories. While controversial IDF open-fire orders have resulted in the death of hundreds of Palestinians since the beginning of the intifadah, top-ranking army officials testified that Israeli soldiers would under no circumstances fire upon Israeli settlers, even if a settler is attacking Palestinians. Furthermore, Palestinians detainees are tried in military courts while settlers who are detained by the army appear in a civilian court where the sentences they receive are often no more than a slap on the wrist. According to a report on settler violence against Palestinians released by the Israeli human rights group B'tselem in March, only one Israeli settler has been convicted of murdering a Palestinian, even though 62 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli civilians since the beginning of the intifadah. (Law Enforcement Vis-A-Vis Israeli Civilians in the Occupied Territories: Summary. B'Tselem, March 1994, p. 8.) Combined with the voluntary arming of settlers in the territories by the IDF, the appalling acquiescence of the Israeli judicial system in the face of settler violence has contributed to the emergence of a para-military force amongst right-wing settlers who consider themselves above the law.
In March the Israeli government took a decision to outlaw two extremist settler groups, Kahane Chai and Kach, making it henceforth illegal to proclaim membership in these two organizations, both of which propose violent measures against Palestinians. The army has also detained several leaders of these groups, and ordered the disarming of several of whom are considered to be the most dangerous of right-wing settlers. While these measures can be considered to be steps towards curtailing the dangerous power of extremist settlers, they cannot substitute for the real task that lies before the Israeli government: the dismantling of illegal settlements and putting an end to a prejudiced system that privileges a marginal Jewish minority to the detriment of the Arab majority population. (Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits settlement activity in occupied lands.) The Israeli authorities can no longer acquiesce in the face of settler violence, which poisons the prospects for peace, and must take measures to ensure the protection of Palestinian civilians in the occupied Palestinian territories.
| New detentions November 1993 - May 1994 (101 total) NUMBER OF ARRESTS IN PERIOD UNDER REVIEW |
|
|---|---|
| MONTH | STUDENTS |
| November | 5 |
| December | 11 |
| January | 16 |
| February | 17 |
| March | 11 |
| April | 41 |
| May | 9 |
There are currently 54 Birzeit students detained in Israeli prisons, one of whom is female. Of the 63 students detained in the six months following the signing of the Declaration of Principles in September 1993, 10 were sentenced, 3 were on bail, and 11 are awaiting trial. In a continuation of a pattern of arbitrary arrest and detention by the military authorities, 35 students were released without charge, and 4 students were given administrative detention orders. Administrative detention is imprisonment without formal charge or trial, and is illegal under Article 10 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which prohibits arbitrary detention.
The following students have been administratively detained since September 1993:
On April 12, 1994, the Israeli army demolished the home of the Al-Waheidi family in Ramallah, only two days after the sentencing to seventeen years imprisonment of their eldest daughter, Abeer. (See Birzeit Human Rights Record of October 1992.)
Under the claim of conducting a military operation against wanted persons, the IDF surrounded the Al-Waheidi home at dawn and ordered the family to leave the building. Despite vigorous protests from the family and neighbours that no gunmen were hiding in the house, the IDF fired three missiles at the house and completed the destruction of the three-story home with bulldozers. No gunmen were found inside. The Al-Waheidi family was given no opportunity to remove any belongings from their house before it was destroyed, including a new automobile that had been delivered the day before. The Al-Waheidi family had resided in their new home for less than a month before it was demolished.
The University is gravely concerned that the Israeli army's actions constitute a thinly-veiled act of collective punishment (Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention expressly prohibits the use of collective punishment by occupation authorities), and affirms that the use of such excessive force against Palestinian civilians demands accountability. At the time of publication, the Israeli army had issued a formal apology to the Al-Waheidi family, though had not begun compensating them for their losses.
For the past two years, the Birzeit Human Rights Record has been chronicling the trials and tribulations of students from Gaza studying at West Bank universities who have been subjected to a discriminatory permit system exacerbated by administrative harassment by military authorities. Students from Gaza have been forced to miss countless numbers of classes, lectures, laboratories, and exams as they negotiate a labyrinth military bureaucracy that determines when a student may attend university and for how long. Although the situation of Gaza students has been declining steadily for over a year, their predicament was sent into a tail-spin in the first 2 months of 1994 with a wave of magnetic card confiscations (cards are necessary for exit from the Gaza Strip) in January, and a closure of the occupied territories on February 26 after the Hebron massacre.
As studies resumed at Birzeit University after the Christmas holiday, Gaza students encountered increasing difficulties in obtaining permits from the Israeli military government to travel and reside in the West Bank. The widespread refusal to issue students with permits coincided with a campaign of magnetic card and permit confiscations by the military that affected hundreds of Gazans who work inside Israel and hundreds of students studying in the West Bank. In an apparent attempt to harass and reduce the number of Gaza residents present in the West Bank, work permits and travel permits were confiscated at crossing points into Israel. The Human Rights Action Project received reports from several students who were told by soldiers that their permits were being confiscated in retaliation for their political views regarding the peace process. In response to the growing number of students affected by the increased restrictions, a coordinating committee of human rights groups, Israeli lawyers and Birzeit University was formed to lobby on behalf of Gaza students and to challenge the decisions of the military government in the High Court.
Even before the first appeal to the High Court, however, the situation deteriorated dramatically when the military sealed off the Gaza Strip and the West Bank in the aftermath of the Hebron massacre. With the imposition of the new closure on February 26, all permits issued prior to the massacre were rendered invalid, and all students and faculty were forced to return to the Gaza Strip to apply for new temporary permits required by the military government during the closure. These applications have been refused en masse, resulting in a near total prohibition on students leaving the Gaza Strip. As the second semester progresses, there are over 1,100 students from the Gaza Strip who are restricted by the military authorities from pursuing their studies at universities and colleges in the West Bank. This problem becomes increasingly urgent in light of the fact that only limited educational opportunities currently exist in the Gaza Strip; there are today only two universities in Gaza which are not equipped to offer the full range of academic courses. In an urgent communication issued by the Gaza Center for Rights and Law on March 21, the closure was described as "not only...a fundamental breach of international law, but also a pernicious move by the Israeli authorities which strikes at the heart of Palestinian tradition and aspiration: the desire for education."
This latest closure has been in effect for over 2 months, with no indication from the authorities that it will be lifted in the near future. As each day passes, the prospect of losing the entire academic year looms larger for Gaza students. Those who have put their personal safety at risk by coming to the University irregardless of the closure, live in constant fear of arrest by the military, deportation back to Gaza, and hefty fines: on April 28, the IDF conducted a raid near Birzeit and arrested 29 students from Gaza, sent them back to the Gaza Strip after one day in prison, and fined each student the equivalent of $150. Already beset by economic hardships and human rights abuses borne of continued military occupation, these students must be guaranteed the unconditional right to education as set out in Article 13 of the International Covenant on Economic and Social Rights, to which Israel is a signatory. In a joint press statement issued by the Gaza Center for Rights and Law, Al-Haq and Birzeit University on February 16, the groups stressed that students from Gaza must be allowed the unrestricted right to obtain and develop the skills and critical thinking necessary for the development of functioning self-governing structure and democratic civil society envisioned by the peace agreement. Fragmentation of the Palestinian communal unit achieved through a policy of `de-linking' the occupied territories must be vigorously protested; urgent intervention from the international community is requested to ensure that Israel fulfills its obligations under international law to guarantee the freedom of movement of Gaza students and to safeguard the academic freedom of all Palestinian students.
In early December, Birzeit University mourned the death of Bassima Shehadeh, wife of University lecturer Samir Shehadeh and mother of Birzeit student, Nizar Tamimi Shehadeh. Bassima Shehadeh died on December 6, 1993 of a ruptured brain aneurysm that she suffered after falling outside of the Ramallah military court and hitting her head on concrete steps. Mrs. Shehadeh, who had suffered a previous rupture several weeks before, was attempting to attend a court hearing for her son, Nizar, who was being detained in Ramallah prison in connection with the death of an Israeli settler last November.
According to witnesses waiting to enter the Ramallah military court on December 2, Bassima Shehadeh entered into an argument with soldiers at the entrance to the prison grounds when they tried to detain her 16-year-old son who was waiting with her to attend Nizar's hearing. Witnesses said that a female Israeli soldier shoved Mrs. Shehadeh back toward the waiting area, causing her to fall and strike her head. Mrs. Shehadeh lost consciousness and was transferred to Ramallah hospital, where she died 4 days later. The Birzeit Human Rights Project, working with its attorney and the family's attorney, was able to secure a visit to Nizar in Ramallah prison from his sister on December 5, so that she could inform her brother of his mother's condition. The authorities denied all requests to allow Nizar to attend the funeral of his mother and grieve with his family were all denied.
The Israeli army's commonplace cruel and humiliating treatment of Palestinian civilians has long been criticized by human rights observers; in this case, it appears to have had fatal consequences. Complaints lodged against army actions, however, are only investigated by the Israeli army itself, which has consistently failed to bring to trial soldiers suspected of excessive force.
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