Refereed: ’s initial report submitted to the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights under articles 16 and 17 of the Covenant (E/1990/5/Add.39)

The Right to Adequate Food (Art. 11) in Israel and the Occupied Territories

Parallel information to the initial report of Israel concerning Economic, Social and Cultural Rights enshrined in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

Submitted at the occasion of the 19th session of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (16 November - 4 December, 1998) b FIAN International, an NGO in consultative status with ECOSOC, working for the Human Right to Feed Oneself. Preface

FIAN, the international human rights organization for the right to feed oneself, would like to present a parallel report to the periodic report on Israel submitted by the Israeli Government. Of the many questions concerning economic human rights in Israel, FIAN will here concentrate on the right to freedom from hunger and the right to adequate food of a limited number of vulnerable groups in Israel and the occupied territories. Particular attention is paid to the case certain communities. The State of Israel has the obligation under international law to respect the right to adequate food of everyone in Israel, and also in other areas under its control.

Israel is a State Party to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Under Art. 11 of the ICESCR, State Parties undertake to realize the right to freedom from hunger and the right to adequate food. The right to adequate food, or the right to feed oneself, is based on having access to food in dignity. Therefore, states are obliged to:

C Respect the access to food adequate in quality and quantity; a food intake that allows for an active and healthy life, that is nutritionally balanced, free of toxic substances and culturally acceptable. This obligation means that states must not adopt any measures that destroy access to the resources necessary for the food security of groups or individuals.

C Protect the existing access to food against aggression by third parties: and

C Fulfill the food security of everyone, i.e. to ensure that all have access to food in dignity, especially vulnerable persons and groups. To this end, governments are in particular obliged to take the necessary administrative and legislative measures, such as social security legislation and predictable and fair labour market regulations.

Based on Art. 16 of the ICESCR, the State Parties, including Israel, have the duty to present reports on the measures they have adopted and the progress they have made in order to guarantee the respect of the rights included in the Covenant.

In order to meet this duty, the states should follow the guidelines of the CESCR. According to a note by the UN Secretary-General, those guidelines have been adopted to facilitate the elaboration of the State Reports and to avoid inadequateness or insufficiency.

Art. 11 of the Covenant clearly states the kind of information required. According to Clause 2, a sufficient reference to the right to food has to be made. Strictly speaking, a general description of the countries implementation of the right to feed oneself, the sources of information, studies on the food situation and supervisory measures, the statistical data on the existence of famine and/or malnutrition in the country has to be provided. Specific aspects of especially vulnerable or disadvantaged groups should be taken into account.

The serious concerns brought forward in this report are mainly linked to the access to productive resources, particularly land, and the access to work. Without claiming to give an exhaustive account of the situation, this report contains significant evidence showing that the Government

2 of Israel deliberately commits gross violations of the right to adequate food of people in the occupied territories.

Parallel information to the initial report of Israel concerning the right to adequate food as enshrined in the the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

Contents

1. Introduction ...... 4

1.1 Background ...... 4 1.2 Geography ...... 4 1.3 Economy ...... 5 1.4 Population ...... 5 1.5 Standard of Living ...... 5

2. LEGAL PROTECTION ...... 6

3. ACCESS TO LAND ...... 7

3.1 ...... 7 3.1.1 The Jahalin ...... 9 3.1.2 Forced Evictions ...... 10

4. ACCESS TO MARKETS ...... 12

5. THE STATE REPORT AND THE RIGHT TO ADEQUATE FOOD ...... 14

6. CONCLUSION ...... 15

Annex SUGGESTED QUESTIONS TO THE STATE OF ISRAEL

3 1. INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background

50 years after the creation of the State of Israel, the country is still entangled in disputes concerning, inter alia, borders and natural resources. Major efforts to deal with these and other issues have been made during the last years, most recently on October 23rd 1998, when mostly old promises once again were put on paper and signed.

Israel upholds its dominant role in the region much due to external support. Its ability to put major military force behind its words contributes to the significant impact it exercises in and outside of Israel. In relation to the Palestinian Authority, Israel's political powers are extensive. According to the Oslo Declaration of Principles, the military law of the occupation remains the legal foundation of government throughout the transition period (up till 1999). Israel has a veto over all Palestinian legislation. The agreement states that Israeli security considerations override any other provision. This makes it technically possible for Israel to justify actions that are against the spirit of the agreement. Although Israeli Settlers only constitute an estimated 0,6 percent (1996) of the population of Gaza, Israel controls at least 44 percent of the area. In the , where 17 percent of the population are Jews, Israel controls 78 percent of the total land area.1 Israel also controls the international borders between the West Bank and Jordan and between the and Egypt.

These facts have changed do some extent following the Wye-agreement of October 23, 1998. According to this may move freely between Gaza and the West Bank. A piece of the West Bank has also been given to the Palestinians. Both these provisions, along with the others, have been part of earlier agreements but never respected.

1.2 Geography

The State of Israel has a total land area of 20,770 sq. km ( 27,800 or 1/3 larger, the occupied territories of the West Bank (approx. 80 percent), the Gaza Strip (approx. 44 percent), and the Golan Heights taken into account). Its immediate neighbours include Lebanon and Syria to the north/northeast, Jordan to the east and Egypt to the west.

The land comprises four natural regions: the coastal plains, with a Mediterranean climate, the country's only agricultural centre; a central hilly and mountainous region, stretching from Galilee to Judea; the western lowlands, bound on the north by the Jordan River, which flows into the Dead Sea; and the Negev Desert to the south which covers half of the total territory.

1Roy, Sara, 1997, speech at Brown University, USA

4 1.3 Economy

Situated in the midst of a region with widespread poverty, Israel is a developed market economy with a real GDP growth rate of 4.6 percent in 1996. Agriculture, together with fishing and forestry, contributes relatively little to the economy: 3.5 percent. The main agricultural products are fruits for export, grapes, cotton, beet, potatoes and wheat. Industrial production accounts for 22 percent of the GDP and is growing rapidly. The service sector is the largest economic sector with 74.5 percent of the GDP.

Foreign assistance contributes a great deal to Israel’s state budget. The country depends on foreign markets for imports of crude oil, grains, raw materials and military equipment. Israeli markets, in turn, are extremely important for the Palestinian production. West Bank's and Gaza's trade with Israel represents 80 percent of the exports and 90 percent of the imports. Tens of thousands of Palestinians also depend on the Israeli markets for their access to work.

1.3 Population

In July 1997, the total population was estimated to 5,863,000, of which Jews constitute the largest ethnic group (80.2 percent), followed by Muslims (14.9 percent), Christians (3.2 percent), and Druze and other groups (1.7 percent). This figure includes an estimated 136,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank (17 percent of tot. pop.), 15,000 in the Israeli Occupied Golan Heights, at least 5,000 in the Gaza Strip (0,6 percent of the tot. pop.), and 156,000 in East (as of August 1996). Since the inception of the State of Israel in 1948, the country has received large numbers of immigrants. Since the beginning of the 1990s the influx of immigrants has increased considerably, notably from the former USSR . The population grows naturally by 2.01 percent (1997 estimates). Taking the immigration into account, the Israeli population has grown by 26.3 percent since 1990.

1.4 Standard of living

Despite important per capita economic progress, large parts of the Israeli population live in poverty; the government estimates that 16 percent of the population have a net income below the poverty line (defined as less than 50 percent of the net median income, adjusted to family size), and statistically, every fifth child lives in a family whose income is below the poverty line. There is currently no disaggregate data on the incomes and nutritional status of vulnerable groups. The State Report does therefore not reveal the status of these groups' access to food.

5 2. LEGAL PROTECTION

According to The Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel, which is said to be the foundation of human rights protection in Israel, the State will "foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants." It will equally "ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex..." Thus, there is no doubt that citizens of Israel are formally guaranteed, albeit in the form of a declaration, basic human rights.

In the State Report it is claimed that the right to an adequate standard of living, which includes the right to adequate food, is guaranteed under the Israeli legal system as a whole, and not in a single legal text. The State Report nevertheless lacks convincing arguments for that this is so in reality, neither in terms of legislation, nor in actual government practices vis-à-vis vulnerable groups.

As for the right to adequate standard of living in general, the Report refers to the provisions of the Social Rights Bill of 1993, which is a Basic Law2. However, the bill is not yet an enforceable legal instrument, and does therefore not facilitate the realization of the right to adequate food in Israel.

The Human Dignity and Liberty Basic Law implicitly guarantees the right to food and the right to feed oneself. It guarantees all persons the preservation and protection of their life, body and dignity (emphasis added). This law may however be violated by a law "benefiting the values of the State of Israel, enacted for a proper purpose...". The law is further weakened by a provision guaranteeing that the law shall not affect the validity of any law in force prior to the commencement of the Basic Law.

Among the laws that may apply to the right to food specifically, the State Report mentions the Income Maintenance Law of 1980. This law, it is contended, provides a "safety net", which means that whoever lacks the defined minimal income has the right to receive from the National Insurance Institute a monthly allowance up to an allowed minimum. The granting of this allowance does not, however, come into effect when employment opportunities proposed by the Employment Service are rejected. This means, for instance, that Bedouins that have been evicted from their lands in the Negev can be forced to accept, in order to survive, the factory jobs proposed to them in the villages constructed for them in the northern Negev. In practice, as shown below, vulnerable groups of the population are denied income and do therefore face undernutrition.

2Basic Law has formally precedence over other legislation.

6 3. ACCESS TO LAND

The realization of the right to food is dependent on people's access to productive resources, like land and work. The question of entitlement to land has always been in the centre of the Israeli- Palestinian conflict. Much of the lands were not registered when the State of Israel was formed. The people using these lands for cultivation or grazing of animals, like the Bedouins, had done so for centuries, but without any formal land title. They used not to register themself in order to escape the Ottoman rule. The Bedouins’ lack of formal land titles was of outmost importance at the creation of the State of Israel. It allowed the new Israeli settlers to register themselves as the only land owners.

Since the Interim Agreement between Israel and the PLO in September 1995, land expropriations in Palestine3 has continued at an increasing rate. For instance, in 1997, an estimated 20,000 dunams of land was confiscated from outlying areas of Jerusalem for settlement expansion.4 The Israeli government conditioned redeployment in the West Bank upon the building of bypass roads for settlers. Often fertile agricultural land was chosen as most suitable for bypass roads with the deliberate intention of destroying Palestinian agriculture, removing sources of income and destroying the integrity of landholdings.5

3.1 Bedouins

Bedouins constitute a group that has been particularly affected by Israel's land acquisitions in the Negev. There are today about 80,000 Bedouin living in the Negev. It is regarded as a prime agricultural area and, according to the Israeli authorities, best suited for intensive commercial farming, thus leaving no space for the Bedouin traditional utilisation of the land. Some 40-50,000 of these live in what the State Report calls "illegal settlements", mainly in the southern part of the Negev. The rest live either in recognized villages or in the seven government-planned townships in the northern Negev.6

Under the Ottoman (1517-1918) and the British rules (1918-1948) and the Negev was inhabited and cultivated almost exclusively by Bedouin tribes.7 Between 1948-67, the Israelis declared the Negev a closed military zone, and some 80 percent of the either fled or were expelled to Jordan, Sinai and the Gaza Strip. In 1951, the majority of the remaining 12-13,000

3Defined as the West Bank, including , and the Gaza Strip 4Jerusalem Quarterly File Spring 98, Issue 1, Resumé 1997: The year that was, Martina Rieker, p. 10, in Summary of Human Rights Violations since the Signing of the Oslso Accords, LAW, 1998, Jerusalem 5Society of St. Yves, Catholic Human Rights Centre for Legal Resources and Development, Jerusalem 6Weinbrenner, Sieglinde, 1998, Foodfirst Information and Action Network (FIAN), Germany, and Association for Support and Defence of Bedouin Rights in Israel, 1995, The Bedouin of the Negev - A Threatened Minority, Be'ersheba, 7Association for Support and Defence of Bedouin Rights in Israel, op.cit.

7 Bedouin were forcibly removed from their land by the military authorities and relocated to a reserve area near Be'ersheba.8 This reserve, one tenth of the size of their former lands, was situated on the land of other tribes.9

The traditional occupations of the Negev Bedouin consisted in cultivating grains and raising livestock, mainly black goats and camels. In 1931 a British census showed that 89 percent of the Bedouin in the Negev were dependent on agriculture and 10 percent on grazing livestock. This traditional life style required the seasonal migration to find water and pasture. Each tribe possessed its own well defined territory. The resources of this territory, such as arable land, water and pasture, belonged solely to the tribe possessing the territory.10

Although the Bedouin’s land holdings were in most cases not formally registered, their possession and acquired rights were noted and recognized under both the Ottoman and the British regimes. This changed with the creation of Israel.11 In the absence of complete land registration of the Negev, Israeli authorities used Ottoman law and land classification to justify their expropriation of Beouins. According to Ottoman law, mawat land - dead land - is land that is unsuitable for agriculture. The ultimate owner of mawat was the state. The fact is only that Israel, claiming to be the legal successor of the Ottoman, asserted that all Negev lands could be classified as mawat. This is, as was indicated above, incorrect.

Two other legal instruments used by the Israelis are the 1951 Transfer of Property Law, which allowed the government to acquire the property of absentee owners, and the 1953 Law of Land Acquisition. This last law declared that the development authority could claim land which was vacant on April 1, 1952, and which it considered necessary for "positive development needs". Under the pretext of the Law of Land Acquisition, the Israeli administration claimed more than 80 percent of the Negev for military and other needs. Thus thousands of Bedouins that had been forcibly removed from the Negev before 1952 subsequently lost all their remaining legal claims.

In 1967, after the military rule, another forced relocation of the Bedouins took place. This time Bedouin tribes were transferred to seven townships, planned by the Israeli government without the involvement of the Bedouins. Those who remained on the land were considered illegal settlers. These Bedouin have continued their agricultural and pastoral activities in a state of constant insecurity.12

In the late 1970s, Israel assailed their livelihood by outlawing raising goats and empowering the Agriculture Ministry’s Green Patrol ranger unit to confiscate flocks that, in most cases, were their owner's main source of income and most valuable possession. The animals were slaughtered and sold to meat merchants in the occupied territories. Israel’s claim behind these measures was that

8 Association for Support and Defence of Bedouin Rights in Israel, 1995, The Bedouin of the Negev - A Threatened Minority, Be'ersheba, 9Arab Association for Human Rights, 1995, Housing for All...?, Report for the UNCESCR 10Ibid. 11The following brief overview of the legal background to the Bedouin's land rights is based on ibid. 12Arab Association of Human Rights, 1995, op.cit.

8 goats destroyed desert vegetation. The real intention, according to state archives, was to evict the Bedouins from the Negev to the benefit of Jewish citizens.13

In the seven townships, created in the 1960s and 70s, the Bedouin cannot keep any livestock or engage in agriculture. They have been forced to give up their traditional living as nomadic agriculturalists and instead find work as wage labourers. This situation is, however, precarious as the Bedouin of the townships are entirely dependent on the government providing income- generating activities. The State Report implicitly confirms that nothing has been done to meet the Bedouin’s demand for traditional livestock raising and agriculture.14

3.1.1 The Jahalin Bedouin

The Jahalin Bedouin tribe lives in a number of encampments scattered throughout the Judean hills between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea (al-Azariyya and Abu-Dis) on the West Bank.15 Prior to the 1950s the Jahalins lived as nomads in the Negev Desert near what is now the Israeli town of Arad. In 1952 the Jahalin tribe fled from the Negev following several confrontations with the Israeli authorities leading to the death of one of their members16, and after they crossed the southern border of the West Bank they migrated northwards settling on the eastern ridge of Jerusalem, near the Arab part of Jerusalem. They survived in this settlement by selling meat and milk produce to nearby farmers, according to a mutual agreement between the two parties.17 Thus, at the time of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank in 1967, the Jahalin had resided in the area for 15 years. As opposed to the Negev Bedouin, however, the Jahalins have not been granted Israeli citizenship.18

Following the Israeli conquest of the West Bank in 1967 the Jahalin Bedouin came under Israeli control. Over the years, the lands on which the Bedouins pastured their livestock, i.e. sheep and goats, gradually diminished. They were denied access to their grazing and living areas under various pretences: closed military areas, nature reserves, the municipal boundaries of Ma'ale Adumim, and the "confirmation" of the land upon which they have actually been living as "government" or "state land" in 1981. Israel's declaration that this is "state land" cannot be established since the Ministry of Justice destroyed its own files upon which this claim rests.19

In 1982, the Jewish community of Ma’ale Adumim was founded. It is situated in the outskirts of Jerusalem and has now become the largest West Bank settlement, with a population currently

13Ibid. 14See paragraphs 471ff. of the State Report, describing very much needed plans to meet the Bedouins demand to form rural settlements allowing them to feed themselves in dignity. 15Society of St. Yves, 1997, Jerusalem 16Bayer, Linda, 1996, Society of St. Yves, Jerusalem 17LAW - The Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights and the Environment, Society of St. Yves, 1997, Jerusalem 18Weinbrenner, Sieglinde, 1998, ABeduinen in Israel und der West Bank, Burger dritter Klasse@ 19Bayer, Linda, Executive Legal Director, Society of St. Yves, 1996, letter to the Israeli government

9 exceeding 20,000. In the coming ten years housings for another 50,000 Israelis are to be built. 20 With the foundation of Ma’ale Adumim, systematic evictions of Jahalin families began. Since then evictions of Jahalin Bedouins from what is their living and grazing area have continued, except for a period following international protests in 1995. By 1993 the evictions intensified when road- buildings and infrastructural works for the Ma'ale Adumim community began.21

The evicted Jahalins have been forced to move to a site 500 metres from the municipal garbage dump of Abu-Dis, where 700-800 garbage trucks unload every day. This site is the only alternative that Israeli authorities have proposed this far. The Jahalin refuse to accept land that Israel declared “state land” if there are private claimants who have not been compensated. The Abu-Dis site has been declared unsuitable for human settlement by independent Israeli experts. According to Israeli law, settlements are not allowed closer to garbage dumps than 2,000 metres. The proposals for sites advanced by the Jahalins have all been rejected by Israeli authorities.

According to the Israeli town plan for the Jahalin around the dump site, each family is entitled to 500 sq. metres of land, in which they are expected to live and graze their animals. This is clearly not sufficient for their subsistence.22

3.1.2 Forced Evictions

Ma'aleh Adumim On the 14th of January 1997, two Jahalin family homes near the Ma'aleh Adumim settlement were demolished and the families had to move to the Abu-dis dump site. A second wave of evictions took place on the 27th of January. 6 families were evicted, their belongings removed and their housings bulldozed.

On February 11, the 31 Jahalin Bedouin families saw their tents/homes demolished by Israeli authorities, only to be forced to the Abu-dis encampment.23 According to the Israeli "town plan" for the Jahalin around the dump site, each family (comprising 8 to 10 people) may receive only 500 sq. metres of land each for housing, living and sheep flocks, an area far too small to subsist on. On the bare hills, there is only one small pipe to provide water for the entire camp, no electrical service and shipping containers for housing. Furthermore, the Jahalin would have to accept 25 years leasehold contracts. After that time, they might face displacement again, especially if the resettlement place is again "state land". Cynically, as non-jews, they can not even sign the leasehold contracts. This is a clear discrimination on the basis of ethnicity. The resettlement on "state land" does not take into account that private ownership by Palestinians exist either. The Jahalin are not prepared to accept a resettlement on such areas as long as the former owners do not receive any proper compensation. If they do accept such a resettlement, they may run the risk of being forced off these lands by the uncompensated title holders in the future.

20Weinbrenner, Sieglinde, 1998, op.cit. 21Society of St. Yves, October 1995 22Society of St. Yves, 1997, and Kaufman-Nunn, Maxine/Christian Peacemaker Teams, 1997 23Kaufman-Nunn, Maxine/Christian Peacemaker Teams, February 11, 1997,

10 Evictions of the Jahalin tribe has continued and their situation on the exposed hillside near at Abu- dis is deplorable.24 The Bedouins receive almost no state support in their present situation. They have been forced to sell their animals in order to secure an income, which means they are selling off their very means of subsistence. The population is missing drinking water, electricity and infrastructure, enough health care and adequate schooling.25 During 1997, the tribe had to rely on emergency aid for food for its members and their animals.26

The evictions of Jahalin Bedouins at the Ma’ale Adumim settlement is a violation of their human right to adequate food. In this way the State of Israel fails to respect the their traditional livelihood without providing adequate compensation. This case also shows the discriminatory nature of the landlaws on which the Government bases its action.

Vad al-Hindi On 28 September 1997, armed Israeli forces raided the Jahalin as-Sara'ia Bedouin encampment located in Vad al-Hindi, a desert valley in the vicinity of the two Israeli settlements of Ma'aleh Adumim and Quedar.27 Approximately 65 families lived in the encampment.

The tribe originates from the Tel as-Sab'a area, located on territory declared Israeli state territory in 1948. In 1950, the tribe was evicted and forced across the border with Jordan to the West Bank, which then was under Jordanian rule. The evicted members of the tribe were issued refugee status and registered with UNRWA.

At the raid of 28 September, the tribe’s traditional and only means of subsistence were destroyed as the demolitions restricted the grazing grounds of their animals. No longer able to feed their livestock, they were forced to purchase animal feed at the price of $200 per ton. The raid also destroyed the permanent homes and the encampment’s water system.

The destruction by the State of Israel of the Jahalin as-Sara’ia Bedouin settlement has deprived these families of their ability to feed themselves and therefore their sustainable access to adequate food.

24Weinbrenner, Sieglinde, FIAN, on-site visit in June 1998 25Society of St. Yves, 1997 26Brayer, Linda, 1997, Society of St. Yves 27The Lobby for Palestinian Women's Rights in Jerusalem, 29 November 1997 (BADIL-Alternative Information Center/, Jerusalem Cener for Women, and Human Rights Information Centre)

11 4. ACCESS TO MARKETS

People's access to food often depends on their access to labour markets and to commodity markets. Without income most people are not able to feed themselves. The state of Israel has at numerous occasions closed off its borders to the occupied territories and called it "security measures" following attacks against areas under Israeli control. These border closures have caused severe social and economic hardships for the Palestinian population of the occupied territories as well as of other parts of the Palestinian autonomous areas. Although the following account concentrates on the detrimental effects on people’s access to Israeli labour and commodity markets, there is also evidence on how Palestinians have been denied access to health care and education as a result of the border closures.

The Palestinian economy is, as noted above, heavily dependent on Israeli markets. This is indeed true in the case of labour market opportunities. Between 1970 and 1987 the number of Gazans working in Israel increased from 10 to 60 percent, amounting to some 80,000 workers in 1987. The corresponding figure for the West Bank was 40-50,000. Thus, the total number of Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank working in Israel at this time was 120-130,000. This numbers have successively declined, much due to Israel's "security measures". Since March 13, 1993, Israel has repeatedly closed off its borders to the occupied territories. Between January and November 199628 alone, there were 15 periods of total closure, totalling 109 days. Tens of thousands lost their jobs because their working permits were withdrawn, and in Gaza an estimated 20,000 lost their jobs as a result of the total blockade of exports and imports.29 Over the past three years, it is estimated that the GNP per capita in Palestine declined by 30 percent, and unemployment rose to levels of up to 40 percent.30

Several closures have taken place during 1997 and 1998. Recently, between September 11 and 27 1998, the number of Palestinian workers in Israel fell from 50,000 to 12,835 due to Israeli withdrawal of Palestinians' working permits.31 The effects of these closures extend beyond short- term negative consequences; both people's direct access to basic food stuffs, and their ability to feed themself have been seriously affected.

First, there has been considerable negative effects on the flow of food commodities as a result of the border closures, in short and longer term. All basic commodities (wheat flour, rice, sugar, vegetable oil), as well as substantial quantity of meat, poultry, diary products and animal feed had to be imported as a result of the economic shocks following the border closures of 1996 and onwards. The border closures have affected the already high price of imports, raising transportation costs and creating an unpredictable bottleneck for the flow of goods. This had direct effects on the Palestinians' access to food, as local storage facilities are limited and can

28For instance, from February 25 to March 13, and from September 26 to October 5, 1996 29Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), 1998, The Impact of Closures on the Gaza Strip, unedited version 30Isaac, J., 1998, Resource Scarcity and Food Security in Palestine, Applied Research Institute - Jerusalem, the West Bank 31Roy, Sara, 1997, op.cit., and PCHR, 1998, op.cit.

12 accommodate only about one week's reserve of commodities. Furthermore, Palestinian farmers depend on income from exporting their surplus agricultural production, including vegetables, fruit and eggs.32 This trade ceased completely during the absolute closures in the spring of 1996. During a period after the borders opened on March 13, Israel permitted the import of only small and inadequate amounts of basic foodstuffs.33 A concrete example: following a bombing in Tel Aviv on March 4, 1996, Israeli authorities clamped a curfew on 465 villages and towns in seven autonomous zones in the West Bank. On March 9 a food shipment from Dura village in the Hebron region was refused entry into the al-Fawwar refugee camp close to Hebron. Other places where access to basic foodstuffs was disrupted include Bethlehem, Qalqilya and Jenin. Food was also prevented from reaching hospitals in the occupied territories.34

Second, the significant unemployment directly resulting from the border closures have deprived thousands of people of their income and thus of their ability to feed themselves. In Gaza, for instance, it is estimated that half of the workforce was unemployed for most of 1996. There is also evidence showing that the border closures have prevented fishermen from fishing, depriving them from their only means of subsistence.35 As a result, an estimated one third of Gaza's households rely on extended family support and social assistance programmes to cover their basic needs. In the West Bank, where the economy depends more heavily on the private sector (particularly export of agricultural produce), border closures have resulted in a marked decline in the living conditions of the rural population.36 According to a report from July 1996, since the closures of the boarders to the West Bank, hundreds of unemployed, most of whom previously worked in Israel, had resorted to rotting rubbish at the Azzariya garbage dump of Jerusalem in order to survive.37 A study from 1996 points out unemployed workers in Gaza and the West Bank as a group particularly suffering from lack of food.38

While nutrition studies over do not yet show starvation, malnourishment is a rapidly growing problem. People sell off their possessions, such as gold and jewelry, to buy food. Many survive by sifting through garbage for rotten food and sellable objects. Groups of women and children make the rounds of schools and offices begging for food and money. Even middle class women are prepared to go begging.39

Another indicator of the socio-economic consequences of the Israeli border closures is the fact that the number of applicants for social assistance has increased substantially during and following periods of border closures.40 In 1996, the World Food Programme increased its food distribution

32World Food Programme, 1997, Project Gaza/West Bank 5474 33Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, 1998, unpublished documentation 34Land and Water Establishment (LAWE), March 11, 1996, Jerusalem 35LAW, the Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights and the Environment, Summary of Human Rights Violations since the Signing of the Oslo Accords, 1998 36World Food Programme, 1997, op.cit. 37Cockburn, Patrick, The Independent, July 4, 1996 38Isaac, Kharoub, Mourad, and Hrimat, 1996, The Nutritional Status in Palestine, Applied Research Institute - Jerusalem, Betlehem 39Roy, Sara, 1997, op.cit. 40World Food Programme, 1997, op.cit.

13 in Gaza by over 70 percent.41 The Israeli Government has granted no compensations for those who have lost their jobs as a direct or indirect consequence of the border closures.

5. THE STATE REPORT AND THE RIGHT TO ADEQUATE FOOD

Most part of the section on the right to adequate food in the Israeli State Report is dedicated to describing various governmental structures which only formally respond to the questions in the Committee's guidelines. The perhaps most salient failure is that the Government of Israel in this section shows itself incapable of saying anything about the actual usefulness of these structures (e.g. income laws, nutrition programs, government agencies), i.e. whether and how they really contribute to the realization of the right to adequate food.

The right to adequate food is, according to the State Report, implemented in two different ways; by "securing a sufficient basic income" and "by either supplying food or food-related services." As a means to realize the right to adequate food, the State Report mentions a few laws and governmental programs concerning income maintenance and special nutrition programmes, for instance. There is however no information whatsoever on what real effects these measures have had on the implementation of the Right in general or on vulnerable groups. The government policy to secure the right to adequate food in general has this far been based on aggregate data, excluding the vulnerable groups or regions. The State Report recognizes this weakness, but gives no explanations to this failure. Given the overall economic situation in Israel, and the Government's assurance that "it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex..." , there are really no excuses for neglecting the nutritional situation of considerable parts of the population, such as the unemployed in the occupied territories or the displaced Bedouin tribes.

In conclusion, the Government choses to neglect any substantive information as to what extent people in Israel and in the occupied territories enjoy the right to adequate food by referring to future statistical studies.

41Roy, Sara, 1997, op.cit.

14 6. CONCLUSION

The present report shows that the State of Israel is responsible for gross violations of the human right to adequate food in the occupied territories.

First: The Israeli government is continuously violating Bedouin tribes’ their rightful access to productive resources. On the one hand, Bedouins in the northern Negev and Jahalin Bedouins in the West Bank are forced off their lands under various pretences, to make way for large scale Israeli agriculture in the Negev or for illegal settlement expansion of the Ma’ale Adumim of East Jerusalem. Israeli authorities do not possess any rightful legal claims to these lands. The State Report contains a very weak argumentation in this respect, referring to laws enacted under the British Mandate and the Ottoman era, and blaming the semi-nomadic Bedouins for not registrating the lands they had cultivated for centuries.

On the other hand, livestock is another productive resource of fundamental importance for the traditional Bedouin life and for the Bedouins access to food in dignity. The Abu-dis garbage dump site, to which the forcibly evicted Jahalin Bedouins in the West Bank have been moved, have virtually no grazing grounds and is beyond all human dignity. The situation of the Jahalins at this site is critical but the Government have taken no effective measures to compensate the evicted families. The Government’s planned measures to reinstitute the Negev Bedouin’s traditional way of life is a necessity, but must also include Bedouin’s in the occupied territories.

Second: By repeatedly cutting of access to the occupied territories, Israel is systematically and deliberately depriving Palestinians of their income. The so called “security measures” have meant repeated withdrawals of working permits, and a serious undermining of the overall Palestinian economy. As a direct result of these measures, Palestine have seen and a significant increase of permanent unemployment. This is, too, a violation of a State Party’s most fundamental obligation to respect the rights enshrined in the Covenant, including the right to adequate food.

The Government has not compensated the workers having lost their jobs as a consequence of border closures, but unemployed in the West Bank have been left with rotting for food and other essentials at dumpsites.

By depriving Bedouins of their means to feed themselves in dignity, and and their income by denying them access to work, the State of Israel fails to respect the Bedouins’ right to adequate food as recognized in the Covenant; by deliberately playing with the food security of thousands people is a grave violation of international law.

15 Annex

SUGGESTED QUESTIONS TO THE STATE OF ISRAEL

C How you will realize the right to food of the Bedouin communities in Israel? Please describe the concrete steps you will take to this end, including time-tables and specific bench-marks to be reached.

C How have the Assurance of Income Law applied to the Bedouins and the migrant workers from Gaza and the West Bank?

C What relief does the State of Israel provide for the Palestinian territories currently facing serious economic and social hardship?

C If the contemplated reduction in monetary subsidies and price controls comes into effect, what will the Government do to ensure that vulnerable groups have access to adequate food in dignity?

C How does the government of Israel make sure that alternative sites proposed to the evicted Bedouin communities conform to human rights standards?

C What immediate measures will you take to secure the nutritional status of the children living in poor families?

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