AL-KHALIL, GAZA, (PIC)– Arab Studies Society’s Land Research Center revealed that the occupation is carrying out construction works in Susiya settlement, built on confiscated lands of the town of Yatta, south of al-Khalil in the southern West Bank.

The center said in a statement on Thursday that the settlement has witnessed in the last two years expansion works, and that nearly twenty new settlement units were built in the south-eastern side of the settlement.

The Land Research Center pointed out that the settlers bulldozed about two dunums of citizens’ lands, which have been recently confiscated, in the northern side of the settlement, in preparation to construct new settlement units and roads.

It added that the settlers have also constructed a new building on the ruins of the ancient archaeological area of Susiya from which Palestinian residents had been displaced.

For its part, Hamas movement confirmed the continuation of the Israeli settlement schemes in the West Bank and Jerusalem, in light of the international silence and complicity and inaction of the Arab and Muslim world.

Hamas’s monthly report on settlement and Judaization schemes, released on Thursday, revealed that on 21st May the occupation demolished 11 apartments in a number of districts in the occupied city of Jerusalem, displacing more than one hundred Jerusalemites, most of them women and children.

Hamas revealed in its report the seriousness of the fierce Israeli attack that aims to Judaize the Al-Aqsa Mosque and of the Jewish extremists’ attempts to desecrate the Mosque’s courtyards and to divide it.

The report also monitors the dangerous escalation of settlement projects in the occupied West Bank and documents Israeli attacks committed under the protection of the occupation forces against Al-Aqsa Mosque, the Islamic and Christian places of worship, and against the Palestinian citizens as well as their properties and agricultural lands.

LAW

“States may not deport or transfer parts of their own civilian population into a territory they occupy.”

Summary

State practice establishes this rule as a norm of customary international law applicable in international armed conflicts. International armed conflicts

The prohibition on deporting or transferring parts of a State’s own civilian population into the territory it occupies is set forth in the Fourth Geneva Convention.[1]

It is a grave breach of Additional Protocol I.[2]

Under the Statute of the International Criminal Court, “the transfer, directly or indirectly, by the Occupying Power of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies”constitutes a war crimein international armed conflicts.[3]

Many military manuals prohibit the deportation or transfer by a party to the conflict of parts of its civilian population into the territory it occupies.[4]

This rule is included in the legislation of numerous States.[5]

Official statements and reported practice also support the prohibition on transferring one’s own civilian population into occupied territory.[6]

Attempts to alter the demographic composition of an occupied territory have been condemned by the UN Security Council.[7]

In 1992, it called for the cessation of attempts to change the ethnic composition of the population, anywhere in the former Yugoslavia.[8]

Similarly, the UN General Assembly and UN Commission on Human Rights have condemned settlement practices.[9]

According to the final report of the UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights Dimensions of Population Transfer, including the Implantation of Settlers and Settlements, “the implantation of settlers” is unlawful and engages State responsibility and the criminal responsibility of individuals.[10]

In 1981, the 24th International Conference of the Red Cross reaffirmed that “settlements in occupied territory are incompatible with article 27 and 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention”.[11]

In the Case of the Major War Criminals in 1946, the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg found two of the accused guilty of attempting the “Germanization” of occupied territories.[12]

[10] UN Sub-Commission on Human Rights, Final report of the Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights Dimensions of Population Transfer, including the Implantation of Settlers and Settlements (ibid., § 415).

[12] International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, Case of the Major War Criminals, Judgement (ibid., § 421).

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