On International Human Rights Day
Al Mezan Center Calls on the International Community and the United Nations to Uphold Obligations under International Law towards Civilians in the Occupied Palestinian Territory

On 10 December 2014 the World celebrates the sixty-six anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which represents the first and the most important global statement on the basic, inalienable and fundamental principles of human rights and liberties.
The UDHR is the main source from which international and regional human rights agreements were ramified.
The event is considered a confirmation of the importance of protecting, promoting and respecting human rights principles for all human beings, without any discrimination among them.
Yet this year’s recognition of the UDHR falls at a time of appalling conditions of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) whereby the basic rights of Palestinians are systematically violated.
Palestinians are subject to grave breaches of the rights to self-determination, life, and to live in dignity.
Palestinians are subject to an escalating and aggressive campaign centered on discrimination and amidst a motionless international community whose legal and moral obligations towards protecting against Israeli violations stem from the principles of human rights stipulated in the UDHR and international law.
This year, the day to mark International Human Rights Day comes three months after the end of an Israeli full-scale military bombardment of the Gaza Strip that resulted in the killing of 2,200 Palestinians; over one third of the victims are children and women.
Tens of thousands of residential houses, public utilities, and infrastructures were destroyed.
We mark this day at a time when impunity remains for Israeli forces’ actions, the siege imposed on the Gaza Strip reaches into its eight year, and the rebuilding of the Gaza Strip remains hindered.
The approval and acceptance of the international community of the Israeli closure and policy of collective punishment of the civilian population remains an enabling force.
The importance of the UDHR is affirmed this year amidst an unprecedented escalation of Israeli settlement building in the occupied West Bank including East Jerusalem and a deepened policy of separation and isolation of Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza, and Israel.
The continued and escalated discriminatory attacks that the Israeli authorities and settlers carry out against Palestinians and the continuation of the forcible transfer of the East Jerusalem population exemplify the lack of respect of the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice regarding the annexation wall and its binding recommendations for the Israeli occupation state.
The dramatic deterioration in the humanitarian and human rights situation in the oPt, and in the Gaza Strip in particular, has created a climate of unprecedented desperation among Palestinians and led the population to question the United Nations' activities in general, including the human rights system, UN General Assembly resolutions and other international organizations that work in the oPt.
Amidst Israel’s refusal to allow entry to international investigations, the UN has so far failed to ensure the access of the international Commission of Inquiry - set up by the Human Rights Council of the United Nations- to investigate serious and systematic violations committed by the IOF during the recent aggression on the Gaza Strip.
Al Mezan Center for Human Rights marks the sixty-sixth anniversary of the UDHR by recognizing the great importance of the rights and freedoms set forthin the Declaration and in international human rights conventions, while emphasizing that Israel's continued occupation of Palestine and systematic violations against Palestinians constitutes main obstacle in Palestinian access to rights .
On this occasion, Al Mezan Center for Human Rights affirms the necessity of the international community to fulfill its legal obligations to ensure that Israel is held accountable for crimes committed against the Palestinian population.
Al Mezan calls on the international community to provide protection for the civilian population in the oPt and further calls on the international community to fulfill its moral and legal obligations towards Palestinians tp enable the complete exercise of the right to self-determination.