UN slams expulsion of Salah Hamouri as a 'war crime'

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Agencies
19 Dec 2022 20:48

According to a statement issued by a UN human rights spokesperson, "Israel's" expulsion of Palestinian lawyer Salah Hamouri effectively results in a serious violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

French-Palestinian human rights lawyer Salah Hamouri

On Monday, the UN human rights office condemned "Israel's" expulsion of French-Palestinian human rights lawyer Salah Hamouri and considers that the action amounts to a war crime.

"International humanitarian law prohibits the deportation of protected persons from occupied territory, and explicitly forbids compelling such persons to swear allegiance to the occupying power. Deporting a protected person from occupied territory is a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention, constituting a war crime," read a statement by UN human rights spokesperson Jeremy Laurence.

"Hammouri’s deportation highlights the vulnerable situation of Palestinians living in East Jerusalem, as the occupying power has granted them a revokable residency status under Israeli law. It also marks another serious deterioration in the situation for Palestinian human rights defenders. The UN Human Rights Office calls on Israel to reverse the deportation order and to stop using such allegations to halt legitimate human rights work," the statement added.

Yesterday, Hamouri arrived in France after he had been detained without charge since March under administrative detention, which allows the Israeli occupation to arbitrarily detain prisoners for renewable periods of up to six months.

The Israeli occupation had accused Hamouri, who holds French citizenship, of being a member of the PFLP, which "Israel", the US, and the EU consider a "terrorist group".

Hamouri reportedly had appealed to French President Emmanuel Macron in July to pressure the Israeli occupation to end his arbitrary detention.

In late September, the Palestinian lawyer went on hunger strike in protest of the arbitrary administrative detention practiced by the Israeli occupation authorities, before ending the strike in mid-October.

Born in occupied Al-Quds, Hamouri does not hold an Israeli passport, but he held a residency permit that Israeli occupation authorities revoked over a supposed breach of allegiance to "Israel".

In a statement issued by the State of Palestine's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates, the Ministry said, "Salah and all other Palestinian citizens owes no allegiance to "Israel", the occupying power. They are entitled to protection, not displacement."

1/11 The State of Palestine condemns, in the strongest possible terms, Israel’s forcible displacement of Palestinian-French human rights defender Salah Hamouri from his hometown Jerusalem. pic.twitter.com/U95Yzaesds
— State of Palestine - MFA (@pmofa) December 18, 2022