Mr. Simon Randles:

I will take the two legally rooted questions first, on grave breaches and countermeasures. By way of explanation, my background is in IHL so I can speak with some confidence on these questions. Grave breaches, quite simply, are those enumerated as such in the four Geneva Conventions of 1949. A grave breach refers to particularly heinous conduct within the context of armed conflict. It would include, for instance, wilful killing, forcible transfers or the extensive destruction of property where it is not justified by military necessity. Those same grave breaches, which relate to state practice and would bind Israel and other signatories to the Geneva Conventions, are also classified in different legal instruments as war crimes.

The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, for instance, considers forceful transfer and extensive destruction, absent military necessity, as war crimes as well, which in a sense means that individuals such as military commanders can be prosecuted.

As for what concrete measures states could take, there is a broad menu ranging in degrees of coercion. At the top end, there are measures such as sanctions and restricted measures, as the European Union refers to them, asset freezes and so on. I think we are quite far away from that in this context, but alternative measures such as measures of retorsion could be applied. That might include the deduction of funds from bilateral agreements between, for instance, Ireland and Israel or the EU-Israel Association Agreement equivalent to that which has been lost through the destruction of property in the West Bank. A range of measures may be taken. We are emphasising with states that efforts should be made to formally map those options available to them. To undertake and implement those measures, a state first needs to understand what it is entitled to do. That is something on which the consortium is happy to assist and there is a range of ways in which that can be done. That is more of an internal process, however.

To respond to the question on schools, it is absolutely correct to say that the education cluster within the West Bank has identified 53 Palestinian schools at risk of demolition. That does not include kindergarten, so the number of educational facilities is likely to be much higher. As Mr. Holt noted, the issues relating to threats to education are much broader than merely the destruction of schools. There is also the risk of physical access restrictions, violence from settlers and harassment from soldiers. That has significant and far-reaching generational implications for our beneficiaries.

Where people go following demolitions is a very good question. In many cases, people seek to stay in the areas where those demolitions took place and emergency support is then provided by humanitarian organisations ideally, although that can be made difficult by restrictions on our movement put in place by the Israeli authorities. Some people relocate to stay with friends or family and move away from the area because they do not wish to be displaced again, while in the case of others, frankly, we do not know where they go. Demolitions have been such an historic issue. Although we gave a five-year overview, they constitute a much longer-running issue. Monitoring where people go can be quite difficult from a logistical perspective.