Israeli settlements, also called Israeli colonies, are the civilian communities built by Israel throughout the Israeli-occupied territories. They are populated by Israeli citizens, almost exclusively of Jewish identity or ethnicity, and were built on lands occupied by Israel since the Six-Day War in 1967. The international community considers Israeli settlements to be illegal under international law, but Israel disputes this. The expansion of settlements often involves the confiscation of Palestinian land and resources, leading to displacement of Palestinian communities and creating a source of tension and conflict. Settlements are often protected by the Israeli military and are frequently flashpoints for violence against Palestinians. Further, the presence of settlements and Jewish-only bypass roads creates a fragmented Palestinian territory, seriously hindering economic development and freedom of movement for Palestinians.
Crimes against humanity are certain serious crimes committed as part of a large-scale attack against civilians. Unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity can be committed during both peace and war and against a state's own nationals as well as foreign nationals. Together with war crimes, genocide, and the crime of aggression, crimes against humanity are one of the core crimes of international criminal law, and like other crimes against international law have no temporal or jurisdictional limitations on prosecution.
The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) is a United Nations body whose mission is to promote and protect human rights around the world. The Council has 47 members elected for staggered three-year terms on a regional group basis. The headquarters of the Council are at the United Nations Office at Geneva in Switzerland.
The IDF Caterpillar D9 — nicknamed Doobi — is a Caterpillar D9 armored bulldozer used by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). It is supplied by Caterpillar Inc. and modified by the Israel Defense Forces, Israeli Military Industries and Israel Aerospace Industries to increase the survivability of the bulldozer in hostile environments and enable it to withstand attack.
Jeff Halper is an Israeli-American anthropologist, author, lecturer, and political activist who has lived in Israel since 1973. He is the Director of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) and a co-founder of The One Democratic State Campaign (ODSC). He is a Jewish Israeli.
Urbicide is a term which describes the deliberate wrecking or "killing" of a city, by direct or indirect means. It literally translates as "city-killing". The term was first coined by the science fiction author Michael Moorcock in 1963 and later used by urban planners and architects to describe 20th century practices of urban restructuring in the United States. Ada Louise Huxtable in 1968 and Marshall Berman in 1996 have written about urban restructuring in areas like the Bronx, and highlight the impacts of aggressive redevelopment on the urban social experience. The term has come into being in an age of rapid globalization and urbanization. Though urbanization trends in the last century have led to a focus on violence and destruction in the context of the city, the practice of urbicide is thousands of years old.
Issues relating to the State of Palestine and aspects of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict occupy continuous debates, resolutions, and resources at the United Nations. Since its founding in 1948, the United Nations Security Council, as of January 2010, has adopted 79 resolutions directly related to the Arab–Israeli conflict.
Ecocide is the destruction of the environment by humans. Ecocide threatens all human populations who are dependent on natural resources for maintaining ecosystems and ensuring their ability to support future generations. The Independent Expert Panel for the Legal Definition of Ecocide describes it as "unlawful or wanton acts committed with knowledge that there is a substantial likelihood of severe and either widespread or long-term damage to the environment being caused by those acts".
Richard Anderson Falk is an American professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University, and Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor's Chairman of the Board of Trustees. In 2004, he was listed as the author or coauthor of 20 books and the editor or coeditor of another 20 volumes. Falk has published extensively with multiple books written about international law and the United Nations.
The International Criminal Court's founding treaty, the Rome Statute, provides that individuals or organizations may submit information on crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court. These submissions are referred to as "communications to the International Criminal Court".
Accusations of violations regarding international humanitarian law, which governs the actions by belligerents during an armed conflict, have been directed at both Israel and Hamas for their actions during the 2008–2009 Gaza War. The accusations covered violating laws governing distinction and proportionality by Israel, the indiscriminate firing of rockets at civilian locations and extrajudicial violence within the Gaza Strip by Hamas. As of September 2009, some 360 complaints had been filed by individuals and NGOs at the prosecutor's office in the Hague calling for investigations into alleged crimes committed by Israel during the Gaza War.
The United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, also known as the Goldstone Report, was a United Nations fact-finding mission established in April 2009 pursuant to Resolution A/HRC/RES/S-9/1 of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) of 12 January 2009, following the Gaza War as an independent international fact-finding mission "to investigate all violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law by the occupying Power, Israel, against the Palestinian people throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory, particularly in the occupied Gaza Strip, due to the current aggression". South African jurist Richard Goldstone was appointed to head the mission. The other co-authors of the Report were Hina Jilani, Christine Chinkin and Desmond Travers.
Israeli war crimes are the violations of international criminal law, including war crimes, crimes against humanity and the crime of genocide, which the Israel Defense Forces, the military branch of the state of Israel, has been accused of committing since the founding of Israel in 1948. These have included murder, intentional targeting of civilians, killing prisoners of war and surrendered combatants, indiscriminate attacks, collective punishment, starvation, the use of human shields, sexual violence and rape, torture, pillage, forced transfer, breach of medical neutrality, targeting journalists, attacking civilian and protected objects, wanton destruction, incitement to genocide, and genocide.
The State of Israel has been accused of carrying out or inciting genocide against Palestinians during the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. This accusation has been linked to the conceptualization of Israel as a settler colonial state. Those who believe Israel's actions constitute genocide typically point to the phenomena of anti-Palestinianism, Islamophobia, anti-Arab racism in Israeli society, and they cite the Nakba, the Sabra and Shatila massacre, the blockade of the Gaza Strip, the 2014 Gaza War and the 2023 Israel–Hamas war as instances of genocide. It is alleged that Israel has attacked Palestinians using collective punishment, airstrikes, famine, forced displacement, looting, psychological warfare, rape and sexual violence, the deliberate and systematic infliction of life-threatening conditions by military siege and using other methods.
Since the start of the Israel–Hamas war on 7 October 2023, the UN Human Rights Council has identified "clear evidence" of war crimes by both Hamas and the Israel Defense Forces. A UN Commission to the Israel–Palestine conflict stated that there is "clear evidence that war crimes may have been committed in the latest explosion of violence in Israel and Gaza, and all those who have violated international law and targeted civilians must be held accountable." On 27 October, a spokesperson for the OHCHR called for an independent court to review potential war crimes committed by both sides.
The State of Israel has been accused of genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip during the Israel–Hamas war. Various scholars, and the United Nations Special Rapporteurs Francesca Albanese, have cited statements by senior Israeli officials that they argue demonstrate an "intent to destroy" the population of Gaza, a necessary condition for the legal threshold of genocide to be met.
The bombing of the Gaza Strip is an ongoing aerial bombardment campaign on the Gaza Strip by the Israeli Air Force during the Israel–Hamas war. During the bombing, Israeli airstrikes damaged Palestinian refugee camps, schools, hospitals, mosques, churches, and civilian infrastructure.
During the 2023-24 Israel–Hamas war, Palestinian women and girls have reportedly faced wartime sexual violence from the Israeli Defense Forces soldiers. Two Palestinian women reported being raped by male Israeli soldiers while in prison.
Michael Fakhri is the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food and an associate professor of Law and the University of Oregon.
The environmental damage of Gaza caused by the Israel–Hamas war is extensive, due to a combination of destruction of agricultural land, displacement of people, bombing and the Israeli blockade the Gaza Strip is experiencing famine. By March 2024, nearly half of tree cover and farmland had been destroyed by Israeli forces by bulldozers and bombs.
