Press Releases

On 9 September, BADIL Resource Center, through its ongoing participation in the United Nations Human Rights Council Session #57, submitted its oral statement under Item 3: Interactive Dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence.

The statement recalled that the lack of accountability for over 76 years of ongoing Nakba, marked by the forced displacement and denial of reparations owed to 9.17 million Palestinian refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs), has allowed Israel to commit genocide in the Gaza Strip, and escalate its suppression policies in the West Bank and in 1948 Palestine.

Instead of imposing sanctions to hold the Israeli colonial apartheid regime accountable for its crimes of forced displacement  colonization, apartheid, and genocide, third States continue to provide it with military, economic and political support, while suppressing fundamental freedoms such as expression and assembly, as well as attacking independent courts and experts, and defunding humanitarian aid (UNRWA). Israel’s impunity is therefore only possible because of third states’ complicity and failure to uphold their legal obligations, including following the provisional measures issued by the ICJ.

BADIL welcomed the Special Rapporteur’s vision for transitional justice, rooted in international law and informed by a victim-centered approach. Accordingly, BADIL called on third states to adopt a comprehensive rights-based decolonization approach to Palestine, which centers the Palestinian people’s inalienable rights to self-determination and reparations, especially for Palestinian refugees and IDPs, including their rights to return, property restitution, compensation and guarantees of non-repetition.

For the video recording of the statement, see here at 00:02:28 (at 2min and 28sec)