-Caveat Lector-
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20021029/ap_wo_en_po/un_mideast_rights_2
U.N. investigator says Israel breaching international law in Palestinian
territories
Tue Oct 29,11:37 AM ET
By JONATHAN FOWLER, Associated Press Writer
GENEVA - Israel is breaching international law by ducking its
responsibility to run the Palestinian territories it occupies, a United
Nations investigator said in a report released Tuesday.
Occupying powers have an obligation to let people under their
control live normally, with proper access to food, education and medical
care, said John Dugard in a report to the U.N. General Assembly. They
should allow local authorities to continue running basic services - like
garbage collection - or take them over themselves. Israel is doing
neither, he said.
"Israel cannot ... deny the Palestinian Authority the capacity to
provide
an adequate and functioning civil administration, and at the same time
refuse to accept any responsibility for such an administration itself,"
he said in his 16-page report.
Yaakov Levy, Israel's ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva,
told The Associated Press that Dugard's report was "one-sided and
biased" and included "unfounded and baseless accusations."
Dugard, a university lecturer from South Africa, said Israel has
effectively reoccupied areas that were handed over to the Palestinians
under the 1994 Oslo peace agreements and therefore should take
responsibility for civil administration.
He visited Israel and Palestinian areas in August to prepare the
report and updated the document in September.
"There can be no doubt that Israel has legitimate security
concerns," Dugard said. "Waves of Palestinian suicide bombers have
inflicted deep wounds on Israeli society (and) Israel has both a right
and an obligation to protect its people from further attacks."
The bombers showed "no regard for either the principle of
distinction or that of proportionality."
But Israel's reaction also was disproportionate, he said.
The blockades have imposed a "stranglehold," and following its
incursions and airstrikes the Israeli military denied Palestinians
permission to repair the damaged electricity and water supply and
stopped them rebuilding destroyed homes.
Such measures appear "so remote from the interests of security that
one is led to ask whether they are not in part designed to punish,
humiliate and subjugate the Palestinian people," Dugard said.
The Oslo process brought about the creation of the Palestinian
Authority, headed by Yasser Arafat, which was allowed to run the
autonomous areas.
But since the breakdown of final peace talks and the renewed
outbreak of conflict two years ago, the Israeli military has moved back
in to some of the autonomous areas or sealed off those still under
Palestinian control.
"We don't plan to take back from the Palestinians those powers
transferred to them," Levy said. "We expect that they live up to their
obligations to maintain security, but they have not done so."
Israel accuses Arafat of doing nothing to prevent attacks by
Palestinian militias and suicide bombers or even encouraging some acts
of terror.
Arafat blames Israel for ongoing bloodshed, saying that with its
military strikes against the Palestinians it has sabotaged his efforts
to restore calm.
Levy said Dugard had "attributed base and callous motives to
Israel's acts of self-defense."
Copyright � 2002 The Associated Press
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