Rapporteur urges Israel’s UN membership suspension
A UN special rapporteur urged the suspension of Israel’s UN membership citing repeated violations of international law and the occupation of Palestinian territory.
“I do believe that the impunity that has been granted to Israel has allowed it to become a serial violator of international law,” Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories, said at a news conference.
Albanese said she recommends the General Assembly consider the suspension of Israel’s credentials as a member of the UN until it ends violating international law and withdraws the “clearly unlawful” occupation.
“Israel, in the pursuit of realising Greater Israel, is attempting to reduce physically or spiritually … the presence of the Palestinian identity in the occupied Palestinian territory.”
‘Impunity remains high’ as Israel keeps killing journalists
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has released its latest Global Impunity Index measuring which countries kill the most journalists.
“Israel is not committed to investigating or punishing those who kill journalists and, in fact, has been responsible for a record number of journalists’ killings,” Chief Executive Jodie Ginsberg told Al Jazeera.
CPJ measures unsolved murders of journalists where they can conclusively determine the reporters were deliberately killed because of their work. That means the real number of slain journalists since the start of the war on Gaza is likely much higher than the 123 recorded so far, said Ginsberg.
She said that in some cases, Israel announced the killings, claiming without evidence the reporters were “terrorists”. In others, like the killing of three Lebanese journalists last week, it was clear they were targeted since nothing else was in the area.
“But the key thing is that it’s extremely difficult, particularly during an active war and particularly during this war – the deadliest conflict for journalists that CPJ has ever documented – to document because so many journalists have been killed along with families and colleagues and no international observers are allowed in,” Ginsberg said.
Israel must apply ‘military pressure’ in Gaza to ensure captives return: Gallant
Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant has told troops that they must apply “military pressure” to guarantee the return of captives held in the besieged coastal enclave for over a year.
“The central issue here is to continue exerting as much pressure on Hamas as possible, in order to create the conditions necessary to ensure the return of the hostages. Your duty is to exert military pressure, and eliminate and imprison terrorists,” Gallant’s office reported him saying.
Israeli army announces new division to operate on border with Jordan
The Israeli military says the mission of the new division will be to strengthen the defence of the border area and stop the smuggling of weapons while maintaining a “peaceful border and strengthening cooperation with the Jordanian army”.
Israel and Jordan signed a peace treaty in 1994 and have close security ties.
In August, an attack by an armed truck driver killed three Israeli border guards at the King Hussein (Allenby) Bridge border crossing between the occupied West Bank and Jordan.
