Ongoing Harassment and Arrest Campaign Against Protected Persons

The Israeli forces carry on with the intensified suppression campaign, in the early hours of Thursday 14 December Israeli forces have raided several cities in the West Bank, two universities and 4 printers.

Israeli occupation forces have raided Birzeit university, they searched the several facilities in the campus and confiscated several of the Student Union’s posters and tools. Occupation forces have also raided Abu Dis campus and confiscated several of the Student Union’s belongings. As for printers, Israeli forces have raided one printer in Hebron and three printers in Nablus, al-Manahel / Balata camp, Lamsa / alQuds street and Hijawi printer. Accordingly, forces have caused serious damage to those printers and confiscated several of its tools and belongings.

Ongoing Arrest and Harassment Campaign

The occupation forces arrested around 28 Palestinians including 3 females since only between yesterday evening and today’s morning:

Wednesday evening: 11 Palestinians were arrested during the protests in Hebron and Ramallah. In fact, in Hebron Israeli soldiers arrested 7 Palestinians including two young girls who were in an Ambulance receiving treatment and a 13-year old child Muhassen Taha. The two young girls who were denied medical treatment were 17-year-old Manar Khader Rayan, and she had an injury caused by a rubber bullet, and 17-year-old Assalah Yousef Rayan. Moreover, 4 Palestinians were arrested from the protest in Ramallah near Bait El checkpoint. Those 4 Palestinians were arrested by Israeli special forces who were disguised as Palestinians and not in their combat uniform.

Thursday morning: several Palestinian cities faced incursions from Israeli forces this morning. And so, 4 Palestinians were arrested from Ramallah, one from Bethlehem and another from Jericho during those different incursions.

Palestinians, as an occupied people, are protected persons under Article 4 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. However, Israeli forces systematically suppress and arbitrarily detains Palestinians. Israeli forces in the past two weeks have increased the use of extra force against Palestinian protected civilians. Furthermore, these mass arrest and harassment campaigns are part of Israeli’s collective punishment measures that are in direct violation of Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention and Article 50 of the Hague Regulations which specifically prohibits collective punishment.

As such, Addameer calls on the immediate release of all prisoners. In addition, we call on third state parties to pressure the Israeli occupation authorities to respect their obligations under international humanitarian law and international human rights law, and to hold them accountable for the violations they have committed.