Sir, – As part of a quite remarkable letter from Israeli ambassador to Ireland Ze'Ev Boker, he declared "Israel does not directly target civilians on the other side" (August 18th).This statement will come as a major surprise to the 20 Palestinian families who have had their homes demolished by Israeli Defence Forces. Their only "crime" was to have had sons who were extra-judicially executed by these same forces.
Worse still, the Israeli government has refused to hand over the bodies of these young men so that they can be buried by these same families. This is a form of collective punishment against the families of the deceased. Clearly the ambassador has either forgotten these people, or else does not regard them as citizens.
His statement will also come as a revelation to the families of the 7,000 Palestinians currently languishing in Israeli jails, 750 of whom are being held under so-called “administrative detention” or internment without trial as it was called when implemented in the north of this country. These families are denied visiting rights to see their incarcerated sons and daughters on a routine basis, with many lucky if they see their loved ones even once a year.
His words will also ring hollow with the families of the 350 children currently under lock and key, some of whom can now be sentenced to 20 years in prison for the “crime” of throwing a stone at an occupying Israeli tank. Children who have suffered up to 22 consecutive days of solitary confinement without any recourse to visits, according to Defence for Children International.
His words will be rightly treated with disdain by the mother of Bilal Kayed, who we met last week. She has been denied even one visit to her son during his current 10-week hunger strike as a protest against his own administrative detention after spending 15 years in jail.
We have spent three days meeting dozens of civilian victims of the ongoing occupation of Palestine as part of an international parliamentary delegation to that blighted country. We are in no doubt as to the ongoing cruel and vindictive nature of the Israeli occupation. We witnessed first hand the practice of military courts, kangaroo courts which have a prosecution rate of 99.7 per cent, locking up Palestinians who could not even understand what is being said as all hearings are carried out in Hebrew, without recourse to independent translators.
On the morning of our departure, we heard of the latest killing of a 16-year-old boy from Hebron.
The ambassador’s letter is reminiscent of those sent out from South African embassies during the dark days of apartheid – labelling oppressed people as terrorists while striving to appear at all times reasonable and open to negotiation.
The ambassador ends his letter with a call for “mutual compromise”. Perhaps the Israeli government could take the first step by releasing Bilal Kayed and ending the odious practice of administrative detention, which is an affront to human rights and international law? – Yours, etc,
Senator PAUL GAVAN,
(Sinn Féin),
Seanad Éireann,
Dublin 2;
FRA McCANN MLA,
(Sinn Féin),
Northern Assembly, Belfast.
Sir, – Israeli ambassador Ze’ev Boker rehashes the narrative that “Hamas uses its own civilians as human shields” and that Israel “does not directly target civilians on the other side.” Human rights groups such as Amnesty International, although willing to criticise Hamas, have found no evidence to back Mr Boker’s claims.
The Israeli military’s policy of using Palestinian civilians as human shields is well documented. In 2005, the Israeli high court found that Israel’s military had used Palestinian civilians as human shields over 1,200 times during the previous five years, in what is known as the “neighbour procedure”.
The continuation of this abusive tactic has been regularly reported since then, for instance by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, the Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem, and the UN Commission of Inquiry on the 2014 Gaza conflict. – Yours, etc,
BRIAN Ó ÉIGEARTAIGH,
Donnybrook, Dublin 4.