Press Releases

BADIL: Causality between Gaza atrocities and the Palestinian refugee crisis

24 September 2014

PR/EN/250914/24

On 23 September, BADIL called on the international community to condemn recent Israeli-perpetrated atrocities in Gaza in the strongest possible terms, and to recognize the causal relationship between such acts and the Palestinian refugee crisis which is now in its seventh decade.

In its oral intervention at the UN Human Rights Council session in Geneva, in General Debate under Item 7, concerning the human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories, BADIL highlighted continued and widespread Israeli violations of fundamental principles of international law and legal instruments relating to Palestinian refugees. BADIL also welcomed the commission of inquiry and special mandate visits established under resolution S-21/1 as an important step towards ending the culture of Israeli impunity which makes such violence and suffering possible.

As BADIL pointed out, this culture is founded upon the failure of the international community to act, and that for as long as politics continues to supersede the law, violations will continue and the death toll will continue to rise across the region.