Calling Israel Places Palestinians in Open Prison, UN Rapporteur Criticizes Slow ICC Investigation

Israel-Palestinian Clashes in Jenin, West Bank. (Wikimedia Commons/IDF Spokesperson's Unit photographer)

JAKARTA - The special rapporteur criticized the slow pace of investigations by the International Criminal Court (ICC), when he accused Israel of placing Palestinians in open prison, highlighting policies carried out in the occupied territories.

UN special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories Francesca Albanese said Israel had criminalized acts of everyday life, such as expressing opinions, assembling and making political speeches or attempting to do so, after she released a report on deprivation of liberty in the occupied territories.

"Palestinians are presumed guilty without evidence, arrested without warrants and detained without charge or trial and frequently tortured in Israeli custody," Albanese said, quoted by The National News 12 July.

Israel has also created a physical and bureaucratic infrastructure that "complements outside bars, the arbitrary deprivation of liberty that occurs behind bars" through permits and prohibitions, as well as digital surveillance that is "linked" to physical and bureaucratic barriers, he said.

"There is no other way to define the regime that Israel has imposed on Palestinians, which is apartheid in essence, than an open prison," he stressed.

Albanese also criticized the slow pace of investigations by the International Criminal Court (ICC) into Israel's treatment of Palestinians, comparing it to courts issuing arrest warrants in recent months over the war in Ukraine after Russia's invasion last year.

"This not only confirms that justice delayed is justice denied, but also strengthens the application of double standards by the international community," he criticized.

"Protecting the rights of Palestinians also ensures present and future peace for Israel, because they are trapped by the same settler colonial system that torments Palestinians," he said.

"I don't know if a two-state solution will happen one day. The reality is just the opposite, and had international law been respected, we would not be here," Albanese said.

Israel has arrested more than a million Palestinians, most of them near settlements, since capturing East Jerusalem and the West Bank in the 1967 Middle East War, Albanese said.

It is known that the construction of Israeli Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories has increased under the Government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, although this is considered illegal under international law.