Jerusalem Center for Social and Economic Rights

On 30 November 2001, JCSER sent the following letter to the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention. The aim of the letter is to focus attention on the violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention in East Jerusalem, to urge the High Contracting Parties to use the opportunity of the Geneva meeting on 5 December to fulfill their obligation under Article one and to oblige Israel to respect the Convention.

Click here for the full text of the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War.

To the representatives of the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention,

As depositary of the Geneva Conventions, the government of Switzerland has called for a conference of the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention to meet in Geneva on 5 December 2001 to discuss ways of ensuring Israel's respect for the Convention in the Occupied Territories (OPT).

A series of resolutions passed during the United Nations General Assembly’s tenth emergency special session reaffirmed the de jure applicability of the Fourth Geneva Convention to the situation in the OPT. These resolutions further made an unprecedented recommendation to the High Contracting Parties of the Fourth Geneva Convention to "convene a conference on measures to enforce the Convention in the OPT, including Jerusalem, and to ensure its respect, in accordance with common Article 1" (UNGA res. A/RES/ES-10/3, 15 July 1997).

The Convention is a cornerstone of international humanitarian law and provides basic legal standards for the treatment of civilians during armed conflict or under occupation.

The Fourth Geneva Convention is applicable not only to the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, but also to Jerusalem as is stated in Article 47: ‘Protected persons in occupied territory shall not be deprived of the benefits of the Convention by any annexation of the occupying power’. Israel illegally annexed East Jerusalem in 1967. This means that the situation in Jerusalem in some cases concerning the Fourth Geneva Convention differs from the rest of the OPT.

The following acts are breaches of the Convention specified for East Jerusalem:

Article 26 & 27: Family reunification, to respect family rights and the right to live together

Jerusalem residents married to persons who are not Israeli residents or citizens must apply for family reunification in order to live legally together in the city. This application is checked on living in Jerusalem (‘center of life’), security and criminal record. Several years can pass before a decision is reached. During this time a couple is unable to live together in Jerusalem.

This policy severely affects family life, the right to live together, and the right of children to live with their parents. Many Palestinian families are divided because of this policy.

Article 33: Collective penalties are prohibited

Closure, which restricts the freedom of movement of Palestinians, constitutes a form of collective punishment as it is uniformly applied to all Palestinians. It has been imposed on Jerusalem since 1967, but has intensified gradually since. In the late 1980s, beginning of the 1990s, Israel imposed a closure on the city of Jerusalem for security reasons. It changed general exit permits for personal exit permits. Checkpoints were set up on each main road entering the city. This closed the border between the rest of the West Bank and Jerusalem.
With the beginning of the Second Intifada on 28 September 2000, a new wave of heavy closures was launched. Extra structural and occasional checkpoints have been erected in and around Jerusalem. Particularly on Fridays and especially now during the Holy Month of Ramadan, when Muslims go to pray, strict closure is imposed. An extra tight closure is put in force in the Old City to restrict worshippers from reaching the Haram Al-Sharif for prayer at the Al Aqsa Mosque.
The closure has had a devastating impact on all aspects of Palestinian life in Jerusalem as it isolated the city from the rest of the country. The closure has halted the economy and affected social, political, religious, and cultural life. Today, checkpoints represent exceedingly long lines, harassment, humiliation, and inhuman treatment. They prevent workers from reaching their workplace, students from reaching their schools, and patients from reaching hospitals.
Israel justifies closure on the basis of security risks. However, this security rationale has been challenged for various reasons. Most importantly because it fails to secure Israel form attack.

Article 49: Individual or mass forcible transfers are prohibited

In 1995, the Israeli Interior Ministry introduced the ‘center of life’ policy. Palestinians with Jerusalem ID Cards were required to prove continuous residency in Jerusalem by submitting documents that they actually resided in the city for the previous seven years. The burden to prove this is placed on the Palestinian. Incidents of ID Card confiscation increased by over 600 percent after the implementation of this policy. Israel reported that between 1967 and 1996, the residency status of 3,874 people had expired. In the period from the beginning of 1996 until the end of 2000 the residency status of another 3,215 people was revoked. Today, despite announcements of the Israeli Interior Ministry to stop this policy, many Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem still have their residency status threatened.

Article 49: The occupying power shall not transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territories it occupies.

Since the beginning of the occupation in 1967, Jewish settlements have been established in East Jerusalem, in the Old City as well as in the near and extended surroundings. Settlements are established in former individual Palestinian houses in Palestinian neighborhoods or in totally new neighborhoods built on confiscated Palestinian land. Fifteen new settlements have been built since 1967. Most of these are built on strategic places and form an inner ring in Jerusalem, isolating the city from the rest of the West Bank, and an outer circle ring reaching far into the West Bank, which is part of the ‘Greater Jerusalem’ plan.
Besides the settlements itself, the Israeli government opened a network of bypass roads. These roads isolate a large number of Palestinian villages in the eastern part of the city. If the additional settlements and the planned expansion of existing ones on the municipality’s agenda are built, including the bypass roads, East Jerusalem will be completely separated from the West Bank.
The Israeli settlement policy dramatically changed the demographic reality of East Jerusalem. From an almost negligible Jewish population in 1967, Israel announced in 1993 that the Jewish settler population had outnumbered the Palestinian population in East Jerusalem. Now, about 180,000 Jewish settlers live in East Jerusalem compared to 208,300 Palestinians.

Article 50: Facilitate the registration, care and education of children

A child born to parents of whom only one is a resident of Jerusalem does not receive an identity number and can not be registered. The parents must submit a request to register a birth and submit to this request proof that their ‘center of life’ is in Jerusalem. It is estimated that there are at least 10,000 Palestinian children residing in East Jerusalem who are not registered.
Without an ID number and registration, Palestinian children are denied some basic rights like access to and provision of education and health care.

Article 53: Destruction of property is prohibited

The Israeli Interior Ministry and the Jerusalem Municipality adopted a policy of demolishing homes in East Jerusalem. Nearly 300 Palestinian houses were demolished between 1987 and 2000. Today, there is an increase in the number of homes that get demolished in East Jerusalem, 30 houses since May this year. Recently, the Jerusalem Municipality announced plans to expand this policy. At this moment about 2,000 demolition orders, affecting 12,000 housing units are in effect for East Jerusalem. This means that over a third of the Palestinian residents live under the threat of house demolition.
Houses are being demolished because they are built without building permit. However, because of planning, zoning, and building restrictions in Palestinian neighborhoods designed to limit the growth of these neighborhoods and to restrict Palestinian population growth it is virtually impossible for Palestinian Jerusalemites to obtain building permits.

Other articles which include breaches of the Convention like willful killing, torture or inhuman treatment, treatment of prisoners, willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health can and should not be specified for Jerusalem as these are aimed towards Palestinian people in general whether they life in Jerusalem or in any other place in the OPT. These violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention in the OPT, including Jerusalem, are observed and reported regularly by United Nations Special Rapporteurs, the UN Human Rights Commission, and international human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

International humanitarian law, specifically the Fourth Geneva Convention, must be applied de jure and de facto in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, including Jerusalem. The Convention cannot be undermined or ignored on behalf of political interests. Rather, respect for the Convention is a necessary foundation for a just and lasting peace.

Due to the Israeli government's persistent refusal to recognize the applicability of the Convention in the OPT and its systematic violation of the Convention since 1967, responsibility for enforcement necessarily falls to the other High Contracting Parties. This is the essence of common Article 1 of the Geneva Conventions, which states that High Contracting Parties "undertake to respect and to ensure respect [for the Conventions] in all circumstances."

The mandate of the first High Contracting Parties conference, as called for by numerous UN General Assembly resolutions, is to discuss "measures to enforce the Convention in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including Jerusalem, and to ensure respect thereof in accordance with common article 1." A meeting of the High Contracting Parties that fails to address and adopt enforcement measures violates the spirit of these resolutions.

The Jerusalem Center for Social and Economic Rights demands that the High Contracting Parties take immediate and practical steps to enforce the Convention in the Occupied Territories, including Jerusalem.

The Jerusalem Center for Social and Economic Rights urges the High Contracting Parties to use the opportunity of the Geneva meeting to fulfill their legal obligations under Article 1 of the Convention as it is convinced that implementation of international human rights and humanitarian law will be the only way towards a just peace in the region.

Yours sincerely,

Ziad Hammouri
Director Jerusalem Center for Social and Economic Rights