250   Human Rights and Civil Organizations Condemn the Attacks by the Apartheid and Occupation Forces against Worshipers in Al-Aqsa Mosque

18/4/2022

250  Human Rights and Civil Organizations Condemn the Attacks by the Apartheid and Occupation Forces against Worshipers in Al-Aqsa Mosque

The Organizations Call for Accelerating the Investigation of Occupation’s Crimes, Stopping Normalization with It, not to Provide It with Weapons, and Impose Penalties on It.

The undersigned human rights and civil organizations strongly condemn the terrorism of the occupying and apartheid Zionist state”Israel” and its continuous attacks against the Palestinian people, allowing the occupation’s special forces to attack worshipers at dawn on Friday, April 15, by beating them, firing gas and sound bombs, and using rubber bullets and batons, which targeted the upper parts of the worshipers’ bodies, according to eyewitnesses, in Al-Aqsa Mosque, and it resulted in more than (203) injuries and the arrest of more than (469) Palestinians, not to mention the attacks on paramedics and journalists to prevent them from helping the wounded.

Human rights and civil organizations and networks call on all countries and international governmental and non-governmental organizations to condemn the occupying and apartheid state for these violations at Al-Aqsa Mosque, which come in the context of serious violations and crimes against the Palestinian people that have continued for more than seven decades, and which, unfortunately, are taking place in full view and hearing of countries that resorts to shameful silence and follow the policy of double standards regarding the rights of peoples.

The undersigned organizations affirm that these attacks by the occupation forces in Al-Aqsa Mosque come within a Judaization scheme to implement the temporal and spatial division in the mosque, similar to what they did towards the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron, and within the framework of a vision targeting the conflict on the occupied Palestinian land is a religious conflict and not a conflict resulting from the settlement colonization of the Palestinian land, the occupation, and serious violations of public international law, international human rights law, and humanitarian law, especially the Geneva Conventions of 1949, and the first additional Protocol of 1977, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide, to which the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people were exposed, foremost of which is the right of return of refugees and displaced persons, the right to self-determination, and the right to an independent state. During the weeks before the advent of Ramadan, the occupation authorities were paving the way to turn the holy month into a bloody month for the Palestinian people, and the policies of extrajudicial executions have escalated since the beginning of the year.

The undersigned consider the continuation of the occupying apartheid Zionist state to violate the rights to the Palestinian people and the positions of the countries that use double standards regarding them as a form of “anti-Palestinians”, a flagrant practice of double standards towards human and peoples’ rights, a blatant silence about the crimes of the Zionist occupation, and further hostility to the Palestinians and their right to defend their legitimate national rights.

Finally, the signatories urge:

First: The International Criminal Court expedites the investigation of the crimes of the occupation that amount to crimes against humanity.

Second: Calling the High Contracting States to oblige the occupying and apartheid state to apply and respect the first common article in the Geneva Conventions, which stipulates the commitment of the High Contracting Parties to respect and ensure respect for the Convention in all cases.

Third: The Human Rights Council and all bodies concerned with human rights take a firm stance against the violations of the occupying and apartheid state in occupied Palestine.

Fourth: Invite the UN Security Council to hold an emergency session in which it takes a decision in accordance with Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations condemning the brutal acts of the occupying and apartheid state against the Palestinian people that threatens international peace and security.

Fifth: All countries stop normalization with the occupying and apartheid state and cut economic and other relations with it, similar to what happened with the apartheid regime in South Africa.

Sixth: The countries of the world abstain from supplying the occupying and apartheid state with weapons in respect of the standards of the Arms Trade Agreement, stopping trade with them and imposing sanctions on them.