To maintain informed, members of Sadaka review a wide range of publications from Israel, from Palestine and from international sources. In this section of the website, we have brought together some of the most relevant documents and visual material from a wide range of sources, which we consider may be of use to those visiting our site.
This is by no means an exhaustive list, but a selection of key reference material.
Occupied Palestinian Territories: Information and Analysis
Israeli Actions
“Hopeless, Starving, and Besieged”; Israel’s Forced Displacement of Palestinians in Gaza
A detailed report by Human Rights Watch containing overview of siege of Gaza. (November 14, 2024)
Produced by the OHCHR – Occupied Palestinian Territory, this thematic report documents concerns regarding Israel’s use of explosive weapons with wide area effects in densely populated areas during the escalation in hostilities in Gaza since 7 October 2023, and how this complies with international humanitarian law (IHL), particularly in relation to the principles of distinction, proportionality and precautions in attack. It details six individual incidents from 7 October to 2 December 2023 in the context of the ongoing escalation where Israel may have failed to adhere to these principles, leading to high civilian fatalities and injuries and destruction of civilian objects. (Published in June 2024)
By using the IPC classification and analytical approach, Governments, UN Agencies, NGOs, civil society and other relevant actors, work together to determine the severity and magnitude of acute and chronic food insecurity, and acute malnutrition situations in a country, according to internationally-recognised scientific standards.
Gaza Strip: Acute Food Insecurity Situation for September – October 2024 and Projection for November 2024 – April 2025
Hostilities, including bombardment, ground operations and besiegement of the entire population have caused catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity across the Gaza Strip. Around 85 percent of the population (1.9 million people) is displaced and currently concentrated into an increasingly smaller geographic area.
A Palestinian Revival: How to Build a New Political Order After Israel’s Assault on Gaza, December 18 2023.
After ten weeks of waging a brutal war in Gaza, Israeli leaders continue to insist that their military campaign will press ahead until Hamas has been eliminated.
Annexation and the West Bank
Israel is Annexing the West Bank, June 25 2024
Podcast by the Foundation for Middle East Peace.
Israeli Government’s Move Towards West Bank Annexation, June 24 2024
Statement of Americans for Peace Now.
Israel is Annexing the West Bank. Don’t be Misled by its Gaslighting, Just Security, February 2023.
By Tamar Megiddo, Ronit Levine-Schnur and Yael Berda.
Apartheid
The Discriminatory Laws Database, Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel.
Adalah’s Discriminatory Laws Database (DLD) is an online resource produced by Adalah, a highly reliable Palestinian human rights organisation and legal centre. The database comprises a list of over 65 Israeli laws that discriminate directly or indirectly against Palestinian citizens in Israel and/or Palestinian residents of the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) on the basis of their national belonging. These laws limit the rights of Palestinians in all areas of life, from citizenship rights to the right to political participation, land and housing rights, education rights, cultural and language rights, religious rights, and due process rights during detention. Some of the laws also discriminate against other groups such as gays, non-religious Jews, and Palestinian refugees.
A hard-hitting analysis by John Reynolds, associate professor of international law at Maynooth University, and a member of Academics for Palestine, looking at the Irish Government’s cautious approach to using the term Apartheid in relation to Israeli policies and calling on the government to support the proposal to reestablish the UN Special Committee Against Apartheid.
CJPME Factsheet No. 229, published August 2022.
This factsheet explores the claim that Israel is committing apartheid against Palestinians. It looks at the main organizations which have accused Israel of apartheid, reviews the claims that Israel is a democracy, and provides a few examples of apartheid in Israel and in the occupied Palestinian territories.
A hard-hitting analysis by John Reynolds, associate professor of international law at Maynooth University, and a member of Academics for Palestine, looking at the Irish Government’s cautious approach to using the term Apartheid in relation to Israeli policies and calling on the government to support the proposal to reestablish the UN Special Committee Against Apartheid.
Zionist Settler Colonialism and Apartheid as the Root Causes of Israel’s Ongoing Violations of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People.
Israel’s intent to create and maintain a system of oppression and domination over Palestinians and examined its key components: territorial fragmentation; segregation and control; dispossession of land and property; and denial of economic and social rights. It has concluded that this system amounts to apartheid.
International Community: Response and Judicial Processes
International Response
Extermination and Acts of Genocide: Israel Deliberately Depriving Palestinians in Gaza of Water, Human Rights Watch, December 19 2024
In the report, Human Rights Watch found that Israeli authorities have intentionally deprived Palestinians in Gaza of access to safe water for drinking and sanitation needed for basic human survival. Israeli authorities and forces cut off and later restricted piped water to Gaza; rendered most of Gaza’s water and sanitation infrastructure useless by cutting electricity and restricting fuel; deliberately destroyed and damaged water and sanitation infrastructure and water repair materials; and blocked the entry of critical water supplies.
Gaza: Life in a death trap, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), December 19 2024
A new report from MSF highlights how repeated Israeli military attacks on civilians in Gaza, and the systematic denial of humanitarian assistance are destroying the conditions of life.
Israel/Occupied Palestinian Territory: ‘You Feel Like You Are Subhuman’: Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza, Amnesty International, December 5 2024
This report documents Israel’s actions during its offensive on the occupied Gaza Strip from 7 October 2023. It examines the killing of civilians, damage to and destruction of civilian infrastructure, forcible displacement, the obstruction or denial of life-saving goods and humanitarian aid, and the restriction of power supplies. It analyses Israel’s intent through this pattern of conduct and statements by Israeli decision-makers. It concludes that Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.
List of actions & policy decisions taken (by members of the international community) to curtail complicity with Israel’s crimes since October 2023
The Palestine Institute for Public Diplomacy(PIPD) is a non-governmental independent organization advocating for the liberation of Palestine from all forms of settler colonialism. PIPD issues bi-annual briefs on Israel’s violations of the ICJ order issued on 26 January 2024. The next release is scheduled for 26 January 2025. We recommend you visit their website.
‘Biden’s Legacy Will Be Apartheid’, Jewish Currents. September 20 2023.
A useful article with strong insights into the approach of the Biden administration to Israel and Palestine.
United Nations
UN OCHA OPT Flash Updates, Snapshots and Reports
To stay up to date on the unfolding atrocities within the Gaza Strip and West Bank, consider the daily updates provided by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA), in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt).
In the present report, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, Francesca Albanese, examines the unfolding horrors in the occupied Palestinian territory. While the wholesale destruction of Gaza continues unabated, other parts of the land have not been spared. The violence that Israel has unleashed against the Palestinians post-7 October is not happening in a vacuum, but is part of a long-term intentional, systematic, State- organized forced displacement and replacement of the Palestinians. This trajectory risks causing irreparable prejudice to the very existence of the Palestinian people in Palestine. Member States must intervene now to prevent new atrocities that will further scar human history.
By analysing the patterns of violence and Israel’s policies in its onslaught on Gaza, this report concludes that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating Israel’s commission of genocide is met. One of the key findings is that Israel’s executive and military leadership and soldiers have intentionally distorted jus in bello principles, subverting their protective functions, in an attempt to legitimize genocidal violence against the Palestinian people.
Children comprise half of the Palestinian population under Israel’s 56-year-old settler-colonial occupation. As a party to the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Occupying Power in the occupied Palestinian territory, Israel is obliged to prioritise the best interests of all children under its jurisdiction. Yet, Israel subjects Palestinian children to severe physical and psychological trauma, burdening them with fears and challenges that no child should bear. The absence of accountability for Israel’s actions has emboldened its disregard for international obligations.
On 30 December 2022, the General Assembly of the UN adopted resolution A/RES/77/247 in which it requested the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to give an advisory opinion on the “Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem.” Pursuant to ICJ procedure, only member states, Palestine as an observer state, and the UN may provide it with written submissions. The Commission has produced this position paper which reflects the legal views of the Commission on the questions presented to the ICJ.
In the present report, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, Francesca Albanese, finds that arbitrary and deliberate ill-treatment is inflicted upon the Palestinians not only through unlawful practices in detention but also as a carceral continuum comprised of techniques of large-scale confinement -physical, bureaucratic, digital- beyond detention. These violations may amount to international crimes prosecutable under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and universal jurisdiction. Israel’s occupation has been a tool of settler colonial conquest also through intensifying methods of confinement against an entire people who –as any people would – continuously rebel against their prison wardens.
In this report, the Special Rapporteur, Francesca Albanese, addresses a number of human rights concerns, in particular regarding the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, in the context of the settler-colonial features of the prolonged Israeli occupation.
In this report, the Special Rapporteur, Prof. Michael Lynk, examines the current human rights situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, with a particular emphasis on question of whether Israeli rule over the occupied Palestinian territory can now be called apartheid.
Al-Haq, Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights call on the UN Security Council to address root causes and protect the Palestinian people from Israeli attacks.
The Commission also found that Palestinian armed groups are responsible for war crimes committed in Israel.
The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel (“the Commission”), investigated attacks carried out on 7 October 2023 on several civilian targets in Israel, an attack on one military base, and rocket and mortar attacks. The Commission also investigated Israeli attacks on the Gaza strip up to 31 December 2023, with a focus on the siege, attacks on evacuating civilians and attacks on residential buildings and refugee camps.
OPT Flash Appeal Progress Report, United Nations OCHA, December 27th 2023.
The scale and severity of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is unprecedented.
International Court of Justice
Case 192 – Proceedings instituted by South Africa against the State of Israel, December 29th 2023
On 29 December 2023, the Republic of South Africa instituted proceedings against the State of Israel before the Court concerning alleged violations by Israel of its obligations under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in relation to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and requested the ICJ to indicate provisional measures.
Forced displacement of Palestinian population; Large-scale confiscation of land and deprivation of access to natural resources, as well as measures taken by Israeli military forces inducing departure of Palestinian population in Area C; Israel’s policies and practices contrary to prohibition of forcible transfer of protected population under first paragraph of Article 49 of Fourth Geneva Convention.
International Criminal Court
The European Union
Partners in Crime: EU complicity in Israel’s genocide in Gaza
The EU and Israel have adopted a ‘business as usual’ attitude throughout the ongoing genocide in Gaza, with the EU, and its member states, continuing to provide political cover and material support.
Ireland: Official Documents and Legislation
Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence
In April 2021 as part of its Work Programme, the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence agreed to undertake a review of the situation in the occupied Palestinian territory in respect of displacements of people and demolitions of public and private buildings. The report includes a submission of evidence by Sadaka, the Ireland Palestine Alliance.
Ambassador Head of Mission of Palestine to Ireland, Dr Jilian Abdalmajid, Mr Éamonn Meehan, Sadaka Chair, Dr Susan Power, Head of Legal Research and Advocacy at Al-Haq and Professor Noura Erakat, Assistant Professor at Rutgers University present to the Committee.
The Occupied Territories Bill
Matter of the Control of Economic Activity (Occupied Territories Bill 2018)
The Occupied Territories Bill (OTB), when enacted, will result in a complete ban on the import of goods and services produced in illegal settlements, including from Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. The Bill is currently before the Irish Parliament, having successfully passed through the Seanad (Upper House of Parliament) and the initial stage in Dáil Éireann (Lower House).
Additional opinion of the compatibility of the Occupied Territories Bill with EU Law, September 2024
Professor Takis Tridimas and Professor Panos Koutrakos address a number of issues concerning the compatibility of the Occupied Territories Bill (‘OTB’) with EU law, in particular, to consider the impact of certain developments on the conclusions reached in the Opinion of one of us (Professor Takis Tridimas) on the Matter of the Control of Economic Activity (Occupied Territories Bill 2018) dated 21 November 2018 (‘the Original Opinion’).
Opinion of Professor Takis Tridimas on the compatibility of the Control of Economic Activity (Occupied Territories) Bill 2018 initiated in the Irish Senate (‘the Bill’) with European Union (‘EU’) law.
Air Navigation and Transport (Arms Embargo) Bill
Air Navigation and Transport (Arms Embargo) Bill 2024
Bill entitled an Act to provide for restrictions on the transit and export of weapons of war from and through the State to the state of Israel and to provide for appropriate inspections of planes seeking to transit weapons through the State, and to provide for related matters.
Illegal Israeli Settlements Divestment Bill
Illegal Israeli Settlements Divestment Bill 2023
Bill entitled an Act to impose certain prohibitions and restrictions with respect to the investment by the National Treasury Management Agency of the assets of the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund in undertakings which appear on the UN Database of companies operating in illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian land; to require the Agency to ensure that such assets are not invested in such an undertaking (and, where it becomes aware that an undertaking in which such assets have been so invested by it is, or has been on the said UN database, to divest the assets of that fund from such investment); and to provide for related matters.
Ireland: Other Documents
General Election 2024
Excerpts from the General Election Manifestos of each political party that relate to Palestine.
Visit Parliamentary Questions and Oireachtas Debates to view more commentary on the oPt within the Irish political system.