Mr. Saleh Higazi:

I will start with the Chairman's question about Amnesty Israel's position and the head of the Ra'am party. Our report details how the state of Israel has established a system of institutionalised discrimination, oppression and demolition against the Palestinian people. This is a clear breach of its obligations under the customary international law. As the world's largest human rights organisation, Amnesty will not shy away from these findings. All research and analysis that was carried out was done according to strict research methodology and legal standards, as I explained in my previous interventions. Recognising the complexity and sensitivity of the issue, Amnesty International engaged with colleagues in Israel as well of members of the Knesset, including reaching out to the Ra'am party, for example. There were some positive engagements with the Joint List, which is a group of Palestinian parties in the Knesset. They were involved in the planning and drafting of the report. Different stages were discussed with them.

The report makes for difficult reading. Our conclusion may be shocking but it cannot be ignored or altered because it is disturbing, because of criticism or opposition, or because it may be inconvenient for some people. It should prompt intense debate at various levels, including individually, institutionally, in civic society in Israel and everywhere else, and hopefully in the political establishment in Israel and elsewhere. This is one objective of the report. Amnesty International's future campaigning, including our colleagues in Amnesty Israel, will seek to dismantle the system of apartheid and institutionalised discrimination against Palestinians, and to uphold human rights for everybody in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, as well as for Palestinian refugees who are continuously denied the right to return.

In response to Deputy Boyd Barrett's point, we need to deal with a system and not the symptoms of a system. There is a story that I tell about this report. In 2014, I was a researcher with Amnesty International and I wrote a report on the pattern of unlawful killings of Palestinians, including children, by Israeli forces, in the occupied West Bank. A case study for that report was Nabi Saleh, where there were two unlawful killings in the context of protests against illegal settlements and occupation. When I went to present the report, I was happy about it because it was a well-researched, detailed investigation, with what I thought were strong recommendations. One of the leading activists there, Bassem Tamimi, was also a prisoner of conscience in recent years. He took the report and thanked us for it. He said that they appreciate Amnesty's work and think it is important. He opened the report to the recommendations page and said that he sees that we are asking Israel to oppress better and perhaps to kill better, but that we are not dealing with the root causes or dealing with the systematic violations. That was a wake-up call for me and other colleagues at Amnesty. To stop the perpetration of the human rights crisis, we need to deal with its root causes.

Last year, Palestinians protested in solidarity with families in Sheikh Jarrah and there was a general strike unseen perhaps since the 1930s. It involved Palestinians from across historic Palestine in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, from Haifa in the south of Israel all the way through Ramallah, Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank all the way down to Naqab. All these people protested and one day all held an act of civil disobedience whereby they did not go to school or work. They did not open shops. There was a general strike held by Palestinians across the green line.

In a way, this report is a response to that. Palestinians, through this protest and strike, were saying they were one in defying fragmentation. Most important, they were saying it was one system of oppression and domination that they were standing against. The executive summary at the beginning of the report is basically giving that context of the support as a response to Palestinian movement and Palestinians acting under agency, both inside Israel and in the occupied Palestinian territories.

I have a point about the system, apartheid and when it started. The report finds the system of oppression and domination leads to the crime against humanity of apartheid that exists today. This system consists of four main pillars. These are the fragmentation of Palestinians into different geographic areas, segregation and control of them within these areas, the dispossession of land and property and the deprivation of basic rights. That is what exists today.

In the report, we needed to trace the roots of the system to be able to understand the system fully, which is a necessity to be able to tackle the issue more effectively. Going back to the year of the establishment of the state, there was ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, which the Palestinians call Nakba. There were massacres and forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. That was, basically, the initial act of fragmentation. We can then look at how Palestinians who became citizens of Israel were put under military rule while Jewish Israelis were not. They were segregated into the towns and villages and they were controlled violently, including the right to freedom of movement. In the early 1950s, there was the establishment of what is now called Israel's land regime, with a body of law and policies that were put in place to take away land and property in a discriminatory and racist manner from Palestinians and not allow them access to it.

In the report we have a case study of Iqrit, a village in the Galilee in the north of Israel, where Palestinians were forcibly displaced from the village, promised a return but the promise was never fulfilled. The houses were blown up by the Israeli army after the displacement and the lands were taken away and given to Jewish Israeli settlements that were established around the village of Iqrit. Even up to now, Palestinians of Iqrit are not allowed to return to their homes, although they try. Again, we have been speaking about agency. Palestinians from Iqrit have their weddings in the church that remains standing; all the houses were blown up, leaving only the church and cemetery, which remains. They use these two places and the church in particular whenever they have ceremonies of death or marriage, basically celebrating life and death. They are continuously trying to return and Israeli authorities are continuously denying them the right of return. They are internally displaced Palestinians within Israel.

The roots of the system are there but apartheid was not codified under international law as a crime until 1973 and then again when the Rome Statute came in 2002. The system of oppression and domination started being established around the time of the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948 and then with a body of laws, policies and practices put in place against Palestinians afterwards.

It is very important to stress that what is happening today is Israel is perpetrating crimes, including forcible transfer, arbitrary detention and torture, unlawful killings and the deprivation of rights to maintain this system of oppression and domination. These crimes form part of a widespread and systematic attack against the Palestinian population and, therefore, there is a crime against humanity of apartheid being perpetrated in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories against Palestinians. The roots of this are very important to highlight and this is what we tried to do in this report through documentation of the laws, policies and practices.

With regard to Senator Black's point, I cannot stress how important it is to have a measure of accountability. This breaks the impunity that Israel enjoys, particularly with regard to Israeli settlements that continuously expand, including with housing units and infrastructure, leading to the continuous dispossession of Palestinians and the continuous violation of their human rights in a systematic manner on a daily basis. The settlements are the heart of this myriad of violations that millions of Palestinians suffer on a daily basis. There has never been accountability. Palestinians were celebrating when they heard about the occupied territories Bill and they are still very hopeful about it. Ireland inspires much hope and this is expressed in talking to human rights organisations or people on the ground. The people of Ireland are seen as people who stand in solidarity with Palestinians in defending their rights. That will continue. There is hope and there continues to be hope.

If that Bill is passed, it will be part of the chipping away of one of the pillars of the apartheid system. We would be chipping away at Israel's impunity when it comes to violating international law. I cannot stress how important that would be and I hope we can see the Bill passed soon.