On this day in 1967, the Israeli Army occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip, claiming emergency powers with a military decree that greatly restricts the rights of the occupied. The ongoing occupation is the longest in the modern era.

The Israeli Army action took place in the context of the Six Day War, fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab states. The status of the West Bank as a militarily occupied territory has been affirmed by the International Court of Justice and, with the exception of East Jerusalem, by the Israeli Supreme Court.

According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), the military proclamation issued by the Israeli Army on June 7th, 1967 permitted the application of the Defense (Emergency) Regulations of 1945.

These regulations empowered, and continue to empower, authorities to declare as an "unlawful association" groups that advocate for "bringing into hatred or contempt, or the exciting of disaffection against" the authorities, and criminalize membership in or possession of material belonging to or affiliated, even indirectly, with these groups.

HRW goes on to state that these and other broad restrictions on the occupied population violate international law: "The Israeli army has for over 50 years used broadly worded military orders to arrest Palestinian journalists, activists and others for their speech and activities - much of it non-violent - protesting, criticizing or opposing Israeli policies. These orders are written so broadly that they violate the obligation of states under international human rights law to clearly spell out conduct that could result in criminal sanction."

Following the military occupation of the West Bank, Israel began expropriating the land and facilitating Israeli settlements in the area, broadly considered a violation of international law. While Israelis in the West Bank are subject to Israeli law and given representation in the Israeli Knesset, Palestinian civilians, mostly confined to scattered enclaves, are subject to martial law and are not permitted to vote in Israel's national elections.

This two-tiered system has inspired comparisons to apartheid, likening the dense disconnected pockets that Palestinians are relegated to with the segregated Bantustans that previously existed in South Africa when the country was still under white supremacist rule.

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  • Voidance [none/use name]
    ·
    6 months ago

    Apparently several hostages were also killedt! It sounds like the hostages were being kept in the refuge camp and Israel called in airstrikes when one of their trucks involved in the operation broke down

    • CamillePagliacci [none/use name]
      ·
      6 months ago

      I reiterate: No one they care about got hurt. As you say they've called in air strikes on hostages before, they've refused any deal to get hostages back, they don't halt any kind of shooting or bombing ik an area when they find out there's hostages there. Hamas taking hostages was a pretty big fucking L because it turns out they care more about their lives than Israel does.

      • iridaniotter [she/her]
        ·
        6 months ago

        It's not a Hamas L. The hostages expose Zionist concern trolling to plenty of people, and they did get one hostage swap out of it b/c you still gotta follow through with the fictional narrative somewhat.

        • CamillePagliacci [none/use name]
          ·
          6 months ago

          I don't know if it has. But I'm open to being wrong. In my experience most people have huge blinders on when it comes to Zionist disregard of the hostages. It seems for the most part people even ignore the thousands of prisoners held by the Israelis (Not even getting into the fact that on a technical level, all of Palestine are held prisoner by Israel). At this rate what's done is done though, just releasing the hostages for no reason is obviously not gonna do them any good. So even if the gains are small they're still gains I guess.