and sanitation services as well as the right to work and to adequate standard of living guaranteed under the ICCPR and the ICESCR. The collective impact of the lack of basic services makes it difficult, if not impossible, for those individuals to remain in their homes. As mentioned in the legal framework, the forcible dimension of forcible transfer is not limited to physical force, but can include coercion or duress intended to transfer those affected. When considering that the majority, if not all, Palestinian communities are targeted by more than one policy of forcible transfer, the coercive environment they are subjected to becomes more apparent. The causal relationship between the Israeli policy of denial of access to natural resources and services and forcible transfer is clearly evident; accordingly, a direct link can be made between this policy and the commission of war crimes in the oPt. The systematic and widespread implementation of this policy would also make the forcible transfer resulting from the denial of access a crime against humanity. There is a myriad of human rights violations connected to this policy which affect Palestinians on a daily basis. The denial affects rights so basic such as the right to adequate housing, right to health, right to education or right to non-discrimination. The denial of services presents itself as the epitome of Israeli institutionalized discrimination against Palestinians. Its de facto enforcement, rather than via clear military orders or legislation, aims precisely at hiding the intentional denial of services to Palestinians. This discriminatory regime, coupled with other Israeli policies such as the permit regime, land confiscation or suppression of resistance, could also amount to the “deliberate imposition on a racial group or groups of living conditions calculated to cause its or their physical destruction in whole or in part,” which would make Israeli policies vis-à-vis Palestinians amount to the crime of apartheid as per the Convention on Apartheid (1976), which applies to Palestinians in Israel and the oPt. Each subgroup of Palestinians is subject to distinct discriminatory systems that differ in severity which are connected by one common feature: that their status is inferior to Jewish nationals. Israel’s treatment of Palestinians throughout Israel and the oPt constitutes an overall discriminatory regime aiming at controlling the maximum amount of land with the minimum amount of indigenous Palestinians residing on it. In order to limit the population growth of Palestinians within Israel, they are confined geographically, and/ or forcibly displaced through Israeli legislation and policies that restrict their access to full equality and to state institutions, resources and services. The denial of natural resources creating the coercive environment which 84

Select target paragraph3

Connect to a paragraph
Connect to an entity
Disable highlights
Add to table of contents