Israel/Palestine

Amnesty International's concerns are based on international standards and applied equally within the proper legal framework. The legal framework is defined by who retains jurisdiction, or effective control, over an area and the circumstances or situation at the time of the human rights violation. Amnesty's concerns within Israel-proper, the area inside the 1949 (W. Bank/E. Jerusalem) and 1951 (Gaza Strip) armistice lines (also called the '1967 borders') include but are not limited to, ill-treatment and torture of detainees, excessive use of force, the detention of conscientious objectors, and forced evictions and home demolitions within 'unrecognized' Bedouin villages.
The Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory (the West Bank including East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip) is in its fifth decade and the undercurrent of violence and inherent abuses of fundamental human rights and disregard for international law inherent in any long-standing military occupation is presented by both sides. Both Israeli and Palestinian civilians continue to bear the brunt of the violence in the region.

Despite Israel 's extensive control over the Gaza Strip, in its decision on the disengagement plan, the government stated that implementation of the plan would "invalidate the claims against Israel regarding its responsibility for the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip." In response to several petitions filed in the High Court of Justice following implementation of the disengagement plan, the State Attorney's Office has argued that, with the termination of the military government in the Gaza Strip, Israel has no obligation whatsoever under international law toward residents of Gaza, who should now direct all their claims and requests to the Palestinian Authority. Implicit in this claim is that Israel 's control over the lives of Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip, described above, exists in a normative vacuum in which Israel is not responsible for its acts and their consequences. As we shall see below, the argument is baseless, both under international humanitarian law and under international human rights law.

One source of the obligations imposed on Israel toward residents of the Gaza Strip is the laws of occupation, which are incorporated in the Hague Convention (1907) and in the Fourth Geneva Convention (1949). These laws impose general responsibility on the occupying state for the safety and welfare of civilians living in the occupied territory. The laws of occupation apply if a state has "effective control" over the territory in question. The High Court has held contrary to Israel 's claim, stating that the creation and continuation of an occupation does not depend on the existence of an institution administering the lives of the local population, but only on the extent of its military control in the area. Furthermore, a certain area may be deemed occupied even if the army does not have a fixed presence throughout the whole area. Leading experts in humanitarian law maintain that effective control may also exist when the army controls key points in a particular area, reflecting its power over the entire area and preventing an alternative central government from formulating and carrying out its powers. The broad scope of Israeli control in the Gaza Strip, which exists despite the lack of a physical presence of IDF soldiers in the territory, creates a reasonable basis for the assumption that this control amounts to "effective control," such that the laws of occupation continue to apply.