Grave concern with military order threatening thousands of Palestinians with deportation or imprisonment

Background

The Israeli military has issued an amendment to military orders 1649 and 1650 effective April 13, 2010; these orders categorize tens of thousands of Palestinians living in the West Bank as "infiltrators." This will allow the military to deport thousands of people in the West Bank to other areas of the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

The order will reduce thousands of people to the category of "illegal aliens" in their own homes. It will also confine Palestinians to their villages and further sever them from vital economic, health, education, and social centers. Palestinians found in contravention of the order could be subject to almost immediate deportation or jail terms of up to seven years.

Israel is party to the United Nations' Fourth Geneva Convention that prohibits "individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country... regardless of their motive."

Richard Falk, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, noted on Monday, April 19, that "a wide range of violations of international human rights and international humanitarian law could be linked to actions carried out by the Government of Israel under these Orders, with particular gravity in the event that young persons become victims of their application."

Take Action:

We urge you to write to your Member of Parliament and cc Israeli authorities and Canadian government officials, expressing grave concern about the military order and its humanitarian and human rights impacts and asking the Canadian government to pressure Israel to rescind the orders.