During the week 20 to 27 February 2004, the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) destroyed 112 commercial stores near Erez Crossing in the Gaza Strip, deported one Palestinian from the West Bank to the Gaza Strip and distributed new land confiscation orders.
At approximately 1:30 pm on February 27, 2004, the IOF entered the area near Erez Crossing, north of the Gaza Strip, claiming to search for the passage that was used at the occasion of an attack at Erez several days earlier.
For this alleged purpose, 84 stores completely razed and 30 others were severely damaged by IOF bulldozers, whereas Al Mezan investigations show that the passage was not located within the shops.
These small stores, which are designed to serve Palestinian workers heading to work in Israel, are owned by the North Gaza Governorate.
Tens of people have lost their source of living, as a result.
Al Mezan condemns this action which is disproportional and constitutes a collective punishment.
On 26 February, the IOF deported 33-year-old Raid Hasan Zaal from the West Bank town of Ramallah to the Gaza Strip.
Zaal arrived in the Gaza Strip at 7:30 pm on Thursday after having spent two years in administrative detention in Israeli prisons without trial.
Al Mezan Center for Human Rights also condemns the recent decision of the IOF to confiscate more Palestinian land in the area of Nitzarim settlement to build a new fence.
In contradiction with the Israeli Government announced plan to dismantle settlements in the Gaza Strip, the IOF distributed notifications of land confiscation signed by the IOF Commander on Sunday February 22, 2004.
The written orders stated that IOF will confiscate 27 dunams [1] of land in the area until December 31, 2005 to build a 560-meter security fence southern the settlement of Nitzarim.
Nevertheless, over 500 dunams of cultivated land will in effect be enclaved and made unusable by this order.
Two homes owned by the Al Ashhab family will also be demolished on the same land.
Al Mezan Center for Human Rights gravely condemns Israel’s continued aggression against Palestinian civilians and their property in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) and asserts that the aforementioned practices breach the international humanitarian law, which prohibits the forcible destruction or confiscation of land and the deportation of civilians by an occupying power.
The Center calls upon the International Community, and particularly the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Times of War, of 12 August 1949, to effectively intervene and provide protection for the civilians and their property in the OPT and bring the Israeli war criminals who perpetrated or ordered these crimes to justice.