Israel violates the right to freedom of movement of people attempting to move their valuable ammunition and weaponry out of troubled areas such as the Gaza Strip, Syria, and Lebanon.
Ein Zivan, Golan Heights, April 28 – Israel continued this week to restrict the freedom of movement of armed people trying to enter its territory, human rights groups are reporting.
Activists associated with the socially progressive Lebanese organization Hezbollah told reporters that on Sunday night an Israeli airstrike hit a group of four men who had crossed the 1967 Israel-Syria cease-fire line near an IDF position, killing all four. The incident occurred amid heightened tensions between Israel and its Lebanese and Syrian foes, and increased instability in both Syria and Lebanon since the onset of the Syrian Civil War four years ago.
The slain men were evidently carrying explosive devices and other weapons, according to IDF reports, indicating that Israel unjustly restricts not only the movement of people, but of materials as well. If confirmed, the reports fit into a much larger pattern of Israel violating the right to freedom of movement among peoples of the region, especially those attempting to move their valuable ammunition and weaponry out of troubled areas such as the Gaza Strip, Syria, and Lebanon.
Israeli measures to curtail that freedom of movement have become so intense, say observers, that an entire industry has developed in Israel devoted exclusively to the interdiction even of airborne objects desperately fleeing conflict zones. The Iron Dome system, though not deployed everywhere, intercepts a significant share of those beleaguered projectiles, denying them access to the more economically and politically promising pastures of Israeli-controlled territory.
Additionally, say activists from other human rights groups such as the Palestinian Hamas, Israel mercilessly destroys tunnels from the Gaza Strip through which people might leave behind the misery of the coastal territory, where they are forced to direct their violence at one another instead of at Jews.
“Israel is one of the most notorious violators of the right to freedom of movement,” notes United Nations Relief and Works Agency spokesman Chris Gunness, who operates out of Gaza. “During the war last summer the IDF knowingly targeted places where civilians were forced to remain by Hamas, and never gave the resistance fighters a chance to move their weapons out of harm’s way.” So ruthless were Israeli tactics, said Gunness, that the Hamas military and political leaders holed up in a sub-basement of the civilian Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City were unable to move outside the facility without fear of being hit by an IAF strike.
Nor are the restrictions limited to movement into Israel. “Israel prevents the movement of such essential subsistence goods as explosives into the Gaza Strip by sea,” notes Amnesty International activist N. T. Smittik. “The injustice cries out for redress, but the international community remains silent.”
“Probably because it’s controlled by Israel,” he added.
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