https://www.polity.org.za
Deepening Democracy through Access to Information
Home / Recommendations RSS ← Back
Close

Email this article

separate emails by commas, maximum limit of 4 addresses

Sponsored by

Close

Article Enquiry

Unwilling or Unable – Israeli Restrictions on Access to and from Gaza for Human Rights Workers

Close

Embed Video

Unwilling or Unable – Israeli Restrictions on Access to and from Gaza for Human Rights Workers

Unwilling or Unable – Israeli Restrictions on Access to and from Gaza for Human Rights Workers

3rd April 2017

ARTICLE ENQUIRY      SAVE THIS ARTICLE      EMAIL THIS ARTICLE

Font size: -+

  • Unwilling or Unable – Israeli Restrictions on Access to and from Gaza for Human Rights Workers
    Download
    4.63 MB
Sponsored by

For the last 25 years, Israel has imposed increasingly strict restrictions on travel to and from the Gaza Strip. Those restrictions affect nearly every aspect of life in Gaza, including the ability of human rights workers to document violations of human rights and international humanitarian law (IHL) and to advocate for their remediation. While Israel makes exceptions to its travel ban for what it calls humanitarian reasons, as a rule, it does not permit Palestinian, Israeli and foreign staff of human rights organizations to enter or leave Gaza. Israel controls Gaza’s airspace and territorial waters and has prevented the operation of an airport or seaport for the past two decades, rendering Palestinians in Gaza dependent on foreign ports to travel abroad. It also severely restricts all travel between Gaza and the West Bank, recognized as a single territorial unit, even when the transit does not take place via Israeli territory.

Egypt has kept its border crossing with Gaza, Rafah crossing, mostly closed since 2013, opening it every several weeks to allow passage for a few thousand people. It has refused permission for foreign human rights workers to enter Gaza via the Rafah crossing in recent years and has restricted the ability of Palestinian human rights workers to cross. In justifying its restrictions on access via Rafah, Egypt says that Israel, as the occupying power, is responsible for Gaza, and it also cites the security situation in the area of Egypt's Sinai Peninsula bordering Gaza, where an affiliate of the Islamic State has engaged in violent confrontations with the Egyptian military since 2013, killing hundreds. But Egypt began greatly restricting transit through Rafah before the security situation in the Sinai deteriorated and shortly after the military's July 2013 removal of former President Mohamed Morsy, whom the military accused of receiving support from Hamas. While Egypt does not owe obligations to Palestinians under the law of occupation and can, with some important limitations, decide whom to allow to enter its territory, its actions are exacerbating the impact of Israel’s travel restrictions on residents of Gaza.

Advertisement

Report by Human Rights Watch

To watch Creamer Media's latest video reports, click here
 
Advertisement

EMAIL THIS ARTICLE      SAVE THIS ARTICLE ARTICLE ENQUIRY

To subscribe email subscriptions@creamermedia.co.za or click here
To advertise email advertising@creamermedia.co.za or click here

Comment Guidelines

About

Polity.org.za is a product of Creamer Media.
www.creamermedia.co.za

Other Creamer Media Products include:
Engineering News
Mining Weekly
Research Channel Africa

Read more

Subscriptions

We offer a variety of subscriptions to our Magazine, Website, PDF Reports and our photo library.

Subscriptions are available via the Creamer Media Store.

View store

Advertise

Advertising on Polity.org.za is an effective way to build and consolidate a company's profile among clients and prospective clients. Email advertising@creamermedia.co.za

View options
Free daily email newsletter Register Now