Today, Al-Haq sent an urgent appeal to eight UN Special Procedures and two UN Working Groups, including the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, highlighting a grave escalation in settler attacks across the West Bank. There is an emerging pattern of attacks whereby violent Israeli settlers, supported by the Israeli Occupying Forces (IOF), carry out attacks, essentially kidnapping and unlawfully detaining, torturing, sexually abusing and terrorising Palestinians–mostly Palestinian fathers in the West Bank.

The incidents illustrate an emerging pattern of arbitrary and illegal abductions and detentions of Palestinians for several hours, during which Israeli settlers inflict acts amounting to inhuman and degrading treatment and torture upon them. Such acts, carried out to entrench and expand Israel’s settler colonial apartheid regime, illegal occupation and annexation of the OPT, comprise diverse violations of international law and international crimes.

The conduct documented by Al-Haq whereby settlers protected by the Israeli Occupying Forces (IOF) inflicted severe pain upon Palestinians abductees may meet the threshold required for torture. In the case of M.M., a human rights defender, Al-Haq documented that he was severely beaten by armed settlers for ten minutes, which caused him suffering for several days despite the medication he was provided. During the attack, one settler attempted to rape him, forced him to eat the remnants of hay and sheep feed in a sheep pen, and threatened him with death––acts which undoubtedly caused significant trauma and fear that he might be subjected to the same treatment or worse in the future. Al-Haq also documented the case of M.B.H.A., whereby he and his uncle were taken by settlers to an outpost, beaten, verbally abused and threatened to be killed with weapons pointed at them, by settlers dressed in military uniforms.

Under international human rights law, the kidnapping and detention of Palestinians breaches their right to liberty and security, protected under Article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). This conduct further constitutes the crime against humanity of enforced disappearance, prosecutable under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC).1 A pattern followed in all these incidents is that abduction, violent beatings, verbal threats, humiliation and attempted rape of Palestinian men can amount to torture or inhuman and degrading treatment, prohibited under Article 7 of the ICCPR. Inhumane acts, when carried out with the intention of maintaining the domination of one racial group over another, may amount to the crime against humanity of apartheid.

Israeli authorities do nothing to prevent these attacks from occurring and they even encourage them. The intent to inflict suffering upon Palestinian abductees is evidenced in Al-Haq’s testimonies–- the purpose is the discrimination of Palestinians because they are Palestinians. In terms of psychological trauma caused by these abductions and beatings, one must note that they are aimed at spreading terror amongst the targeted Palestinians communities to create coercive environments to force Palestinians to leave their land. Notably, “acts or threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population” are prohibited under Article 51(2) of Additional Protocol I of 1977.

As the above state-sanctioned settler crimes, including harassment and intimidation of Palestinians, continue unpunished, the international community remains complicit, and even a co-perpetrator, in Israel’s illegal annexation of the West Bank. Crucially, the severity of the situation warrants concrete and effective measures going far beyond the mere sanctions of violent settlers. Rather, settler violence and acts of terror are state-sanctioned crimes and demand a robust answer from Third States in line with international obligations.

• Recognise settler violence in the OPT as state sanctioned settler crimes;

• Sanction the State of Israel, applying diplomatic, economic and military sanctions and countermeasures;

• Impose a two-way arms embargo on Israel;

• Ensure that businesses and financial institutions within their jurisdiction do not participate directly or indirectly in the maintenance and expansion of Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise in the OPT;

• Act jointly to terminate economic relations with Israel, including by terminating the EU-Israel Association Agreement with Israel, considering that human rights are violated by Israel, which warrants the termination of the agreement under Article 2 of said agreement;

• Demand Israel’s dismantling of the apartheid regime on both sides of the Green Line, and immediate withdrawal of its illegal presence, in light of its blatant violation of the UN core values and principles, including the right of people to self-determination; and

• Initiate proceedings to unseat Israel at the UN General Assembly.