Dozens of Jordanian members of parliament have called for the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador in response to the forced stripping of five Palestinian women by Israeli soldiers during a raid on their home in the southern West Bank city of al-Khalil.
In a statement on Thursday night, members of the House of Representatives said that the development ‘reflects the extent of the moral decadence that the Israeli occupation army and its regime have reached as a result of the deafening silence of the United Nations and international organisations’.
The legislators in the 130-seat assembly endorsed the demand for expelling the Israeli envoy, and called upon senior authorities to issue statements in condemnation and rejection of Israeli actions.
Earlier, the Gaza-based Hamas resistance movement had stated that the humiliating assault against five Palestinian women in the southern West Bank city of al-Khalil ‘confirms once again that the rogue Israeli regime does not respect any international law or convention’.
Hamas said: ‘Israel shows no interest in international law that protects people living under occupation, while the international community continues to ignore Israeli crimes which continue unabated.
‘Hamas emphasises that these crimes are a serious escalation that will not pass without reprisals from the Palestinian people.
‘All Israeli crimes are aimed at terrorising Palestinian people and stopping their resistance and struggle for freedom.
‘Such schemes are doomed to failure in the face of the steadfastness of the Palestinian people.
The incident occurred during a military aggression against a Palestinian family’s building on Monday July 10th, following intelligence alleging the presence of weapons.
The building housed 26 individuals from the same family, including 15 children and teenagers aged between 4 and 17.
The Palestinian women were then made to walk naked in front of the soldiers and some family members after a meeting between the women and members of the Palestinian family.
According to the women, the soldiers threatened to release the attack dogs on them if they did not comply with their demands.
Male Palestinians were subjected to body searches but were not forced to undress.
Meanwhile, a British parliamentary committee examining a bill that would ban public bodies from supporting the pro-Palestine Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement has been told that the UK government is taking a ‘dangerous road’ by labelling critics of the Israeli regime’s human rights record as anti-Semitic.
Human rights and environment advocates warned on Thursday that the proposed legislation risks inflaming community tensions by marginalising Palestinians and pro-Palestinian advocacy organisations campaigning against Israeli human rights abuses.
While giving evidence, Peter Frankental of Amnesty International linked the UK government’s attempts to connect Palestinian activism and BDS to anti-Semitism to a broader stigmatisation of human rights advocacy worldwide.
Frankental said: ‘There is no reason in principle why any human rights advocate should not advocate for the human rights of Palestinians, or criticise the human rights record of Israel, and they should not be tarred with the brush of racism, of anti-Semitism.
‘That is a very dangerous road.’
He went on to question whether campaigners drawing attention to violations against the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar would be accused of being anti-Buddhist, or whether critics of the Indian government would face accusations of being anti-Hindu.
Yasmine Ahmed, the UK director of Human Rights Watch, also said the bill would restrict the ability of public bodies to carry out their own due diligence in line with their responsibilities to adhere with international law and UN human rights commitments.
She said: ‘Something that is extremely pernicious with the bill is the fact that what it is going to do is have a significant chilling effect on public bodies.
‘It runs a coach and horses through ESG (environment, social and governance) and human rights due diligence.’
Ahmed added that in decades working as a lawyer, she had ‘never read a piece of legislation that is as badly worded as this’.
Additionally, Dave Timms, head of political affairs at environmental campaign organisation Friends of the Earth, criticised the bill.
He said: ‘This is the state impinging on the activities of civil society organisations who are trying to achieve meaningful social change.’
Timms continued: ‘This is a direct attack on the ability of civil society to go about the activities that we would consider to be legitimate.’
The Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill aims to prohibit public bodies, including local councils, universities and public sector pension funds, from making procurement and investment decisions ‘influenced by political or moral disapproval of foreign state conduct’.
The UK government says the bill is intended to ensure that local authorities and other institutions do not pursue their own foreign policy agendas, but that the bill will also deliver on a Conservative Party manifesto commitment to ban public bodies from supporting campaigns such as BDS.
It claims that support for BDS has contributed to community divisions and anti-Semitism in the UK.
The BDS movement, which is modelled after the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, was launched in 2005 by over 170 Palestinian organisations that were pushing for ‘various forms of boycott against Israel until it meets its obligations under international law.’
Thousands of volunteers worldwide have since then joined the BDS movement, which calls for people and groups across the world to cut economic, cultural, and academic ties to Tel Aviv, to help promote the Palestinian cause.
- Israeli soldiers have reportedly rioted during a training session for the regime’s infantry forces, a sign of rising discontent in the Israeli military.
A video leaked shows dozens of rank and file soldiers from the Golani Brigade vandalising property and letting out angry shouts. According to reports, the riots happened on Monday September 4th 2023.
Reports say dozens were punished, including sergeants, and several soldiers were put in military jail after the riots.
The regime’s Golani Brigade is mostly made up of elite soldiers who carry out armed attacks against and have participated in almost all the wars waged by the regime.
Unrest inside the Israeli military has been on the rise recently, particularly over the cabinet’s so-called judicial overhaul package, which aims to boost the cabinet’s power at the expense of the regime’s top court.
Notably, over 10,000 reservist soldiers, including members of the elite intelligence unit 8200 and air force pilots, have declared their refusal to show up for duty on a voluntary basis in protest to the overhaul plan.
Also, cases of suicide within the Israeli occupation forces have grabbed headlines recently, with observers blaming a mental health epidemic among soldiers.
