Israel and the Occupied Patestinian Territories (IOPT)

Understanding the long roots of violence - EDUCATION - 28/03/2024

The armed conflict between Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories is one of the longest running in modern history. It is also open to various interpretations, stories and misinformation. Learning more about the root causes of the violence is important to help us prevent future violations and for the respect of international humanitarian law. Read more.

UN report provides evidence that must spur international action - NEWS - 26/03/2024

Amnesty International welcomes the new report by the United Nations' Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, which concludes there are 'reasonable grounds to believe the threshold indicating Israel's commission of genocide has been met'. Read more.

The United Nations' Security Council has adopted a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire 'for the duration of the month of Ramadan leading to a lasting sustainable ceasefire' as well as the immediate and unconditional release of hostages and greater humanitarian access to Gaza. Read more.

The European Council's decision to call for a sustainable ceasefire in Gaza is not sufficient to end civilian suffering. Read more.

The decisions by at least nine donor countries to suspend funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), following allegations that individual staff members were involved in the 07 October 2023 attacks in southern Israel, will deal a devastating blow to more than two million refugees in the occupied Gaza Strip for whom the organisation serves as a sole lifeline. Amnesty International is urging states to reverse their decisions and refrain from suspending funding to UNRWA. Read more.

Amnesty International was among a number of humanitarian agencies and human rights organisations to issue a statement with regards to the harrowing developments in Rafah. Read more.

Amnesty International was one of 16 leading humanitarian and human rights organisations to call to stop arms transfers to Israel and Palestinian armed groups. Read more.

The United Nations Security Council has adopted a compromise resolution calling for 'urgent steps to immediately allow safe and unhindered access' to Gaza and creating 'the conditions for a sustainable cessation of hostilities'. Read more.

The United States veto of a draft United Nations Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and Israel displays a callous disregard for civilian suffering in the face of a staggering death toll. Read more.

Earlier Amnesty International had urged the United States, and other members of the Security Council, to support as a matter of urgency a resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire by all parties in the occupied Gaza Strip and Israel. Read more.

Amnesty had issued an urgent call for an immediate ceasefire by all parties in the occupied Gaza Strip and Israel to prevent further loss of civilian lives and to ensure access to life-saving aid for people in Gaza amidst an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe. Read more. Take action.

More than a million signatures from people around the world have been gathered for an Amnesty petition demanding an immediate ceasefire to end the unparalleled escalation of hostilities in Gaza and Israel since 07 October 2023. Read more.

The United Nations Security Council's adoption of a resolution calling for urgent and extended humanitarian pauses and the need to address the situation of children in the occupied Gaza Strip presents a vital opportunity to stop massive suffering. Read more.

Ahead of the European Union Foreign Affairs Council in Brussels on 13 November, Amnesty iurged the ministers attending to call for an immediate ceasefire by all parties to the conflict. Read more.

Amnesty called on heads of state who gathered on 09 November for an international humanitarian conference in France, hosted by President Emmanuel Macron, to discuss the situation of the civilian population and to coordinate aid for the people of the occupied Gaza Strip, to call for an immediate ceasefire to ensure safe deliver of aid. Read more.

Drop all charges against Ahmad Khalefa - URGENT ACTION - 21/03/2024

Ahmad Khalefa, a Palestinian citizen in Israel, is a lawyer, human rights defender, community organiser and newly elected city council member. On 19 October 2023, Israeli police violently arrested him along with ten other demonstrators from a peaceful protest in his native town of Umm al-Fahm in northern Israel. He was subsequently charged with 'incitement to terrorism' and 'identification with a terrorist group', for chanting slogans against the war in Gaza. After nearly four months in prison, Ahmad Khalefa was put under house arrest under strict terms, including electronic tagging. His next hearing will be held before the Haifa magistrate's court on 08 April 2024. Israeli authorities must immediately and unconditionally release Ahmad Khalefa from house arrest, allow him to resume his work without intimidation and drop the baseless charges against him. Take action.

Palestinian human rights defender is released - GOOD NEWS - URGENT ACTION UPDATE - 22/03/2024

On 29 February 2024, Palestinian human rights defender and social worker Munther Amira was released from administrative detention at Ofer military prison in the occupied West Bank. Munterh Amira had been arbitrarily detained by Israeli forces since 18 December 2023. On 11 January 2024, an Israeli military court confirmed a four-month administrative detention order against him. Read more.

Airdrops and sea routes are no alternative to aid delivery by land - NEWS - 13/03/2024

Amnesty Interational was one of 25 non-governmental organisations to call on governments to prioritise a ceasefire and ground-based humanitarian aid as deaths from malnutrition and disease rise. Read more.

Israel must ensure aid provisions reach Gaza - URGENT ACTION - 15/02/2024

On 26 January 2024, the International Court of Justice found that Palestinian civilians in the occupied Gaza Strip face a real and imminent risk of genocide. Pending its final ruling on the allegations of genocide brought by South Africa against Israel under the Genocide Convention, the Court ordered six provisional measures, including for Israel to take all measures within its power to prevent the commission of all acts proscribed by the Genocide Convention and to ensure the provisions of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza. However, Israeli forces continue to intensify their cataclysmic assault on the occupied Gaza Strip, threaten land operations in Rafah, maintain a near-total illegal and inhuman siege, and obsruct the entry of desperately needed humanitarian aid. Take action.

Release terminally ill Palestinian prisoner - URGENT ACTION UPDATE - 11/03/2024

Walid Daqqah is a terminally ill Palestinian prisoner who was diagnosed with a rare case of bone marrow cancer. Since 07 October 2023, Walid Daqqah has been tortured, humiliated, denied family visits and has faced further medical neglect. During this period, he was transferred to hospital twice due to health deterioration. In March 2023, Walid Daqqah completed a 37-year sentence for his involvement with an armed group that had abducted and killed an Israeli solider in 1984. However, in 2018, an Israeli court sentenced him to a futher two years in prison, delaying his release until March 2025, a date which he may not live to see. The Israeli authorities must immediately release Walid Daqqah on humanitarian grounds and allow him to spend his remaning time with his family. Take action.

Israel defying ICJ ruling by failing to allow adequate humanitarian aid to reach Gaza - NEWS - 26/02/2024

One month after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered 'immediate and effective measures' to protect Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip from the risk of genocide by ensuring sufficient humanitarian assistance and enabling basic services, Israel has failed to take even the bare minimum steps to comply. Read more.

Israel must end its brutal occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, which it has maintained since 1967, Amnesty International has said, as public hearings begin at the ICJ to examine the legal consequences of Israel's prolonged occupation. Read more.

On 26 January 2024, the ICJ ordered provisional measures in response to South Africa's genocide case against Israel in an important step that could help protect the Palestinian people in the occupied Gaza Strip from further suffering and irreparable harm. Read more.

The ICJ proceedings alleged that the state of Israel is breaching its obligations under the United Nations Genocide Convention and could help protect Palestinian civilians, end the man-made humanitarian catastrophe in the occupied Gaza Strip and offer a glimmer of hope for international justice. Read more.

New evidence of unlawful Israeli attacks on Gaza - NEWS - 12/02/2024

Amnesty International has gathered fresh evidence of deadly unlawful attacks in the occupied Gaza Strip demonstrating how Israeli forces continue to flout international humanitarian law, obliterating entire families with total impunity. Read more.

Amnesty is deeply concerned for the fate and whereabouts of Palestinians from the occupied Gaza Strip detained by Israeli forces amid reports of mass enforced disappearances. Read more.

US-made joint direct attack munitions were used by the Israeli military in two deadly, unlawful air strikes on homes full of civilians in the occupied Gaza Strip, Amnesty International has found based on a new investigation into those strikes. The organisation found that these air strikes were either direct attacks on civilians of civilian objects or indiscriminate attacks and is calling for them to be investigated as war crimes. Read more.

Following the resumption of attacks by Israel in the occupied Gaza Strip and rocket fire from armed groups into southern Israel after a seven-day truce ended, Amnesty is resuming its call for a sustained ceasefire to end civilian bloodshed and mass suffering. Read more.

A deal has been agreed to release at least 50 hostages, mostly Israeli women and children, in exchange for the release of 150 Palestinian detainees, many of them children, and an initial four-day long humanitarian pause in the fighting between Israeli forces and Hamas and other armed groups in the occupied Gaza Strip. Read more.

Israeli forces have demonstrated a chilling indifference to the catastrophic toll on civilians of their ongoing relentless bomardment of the occupied Gaza Strip. Read more.

The occupied Gaza Strip will like plunge into another total communication blackout if appropriate fuel supplies are not immediately delivered, which will worsen an already catastrophic humanitarian situation. Read more.

Civilians in Gaza are at an unprecedented risk as Israel imposes a communication blackout during bombardment and expanding ground attacks. Read more.

The shutdown of Gaza's only power plant will exacerbate an already desperate humanitarian crisis for more than 2.2 million people trapped in the Gaza Strip. Read more.

On 21 October 2023, the Israeli army dropped leaflets on northern Gaza ordering residents' immediate 'evacuation'. The leaflets warned residents to leave immediately, declaring their lives at risk and explicitly stating that 'anyone who chooses not to leave from the north of the [Gaza] Strip to south of Wadi Gaza may be determined an accomplice in a terrorist organisation'. The move came one week after the Israeli army had issued an ultimatum warning the 1.1 million residents in those areas to leave southwards. Read more.

As Israeli forces continue to intensify their cataclysmic assault on the Gaza Strip, Amnesty International has documented unlawful Israeli attacks, including indiscriminate attacks, which caused mass civilian casualties and must be investigated as war crimes. Read more.

Shocking spike in use of unlawful lethal force in occupied West Bank - NEWS - 05/02/2024

With the world's eyes fixed on Gaza, Israeli forces have over the past four months unleashed a brutal wave of violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, carrying out unlawful killings, including by using lethal force without necessity or disproportionately during protests and arrest raids, and denying medical assistance to those injured. Read more.

Amnesty International had previously reported hoe Israeli authorities had dramatically increased their use of administrative detention, a form of arbitrary detention, of Palestinians across the occupied West Bank; extended emergency measures that facilitates inhuman and degrading treatment of prisoners; and failed to investigate incidents of torture and death in custody. Read more.

Deadly attack on journalists in southern Lebanon - NEWS - 07/12/2023

On 13 October 2023, Israeli strikes on a group of seven journalists in south Lebanon, which killed Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah and injured six others, were likely a direct attack on civilians that must be investigated as a war crime. Read more.

The Israeli army fired military shells containing white phosphorus, an incendiary weapon, in military operations along Lebanon's southern border between 10 and 16 October 2023. One attack on the town of Dhayra on 16 October must be investigated as a war crime because it was an indicriminate attack that injured at least nine civilians and damaged civilian objects, and was therefore unlawful. Read more.

Hamas and other armed groups must release civilian hostages - NEWS - 07/11/2023

Amnesty International is reiterating its call for the immediate and unconditional release of all civilian hostages, some of them children, who have been held in the occupied Gaza Strip for a month after being abducted by Hamas and other armed groups on 07 October 2023. Read more.

Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups had flagrantly violated international law and displayed a chilling disregard for human life by carrying out cruel and brutal crimes including mass summary killings, hostage taking and launching indiscriminate rocket attacks into Israel. Read more.

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Updated 28/03/2024

Country coordinators - Garry Ettle - garry.ettle@amnesty.org.uk