Investigators commissioned by the UN’s top human rights body have started to gather evidence that can be used in future legal action against Israeli individuals involved in the deportation of Palestinian human rights lawyer Salah Hammouri, who holds French citizenship.
This came in an annual report released recently by the UN Human Rights Council’s “Commission of Inquiry.” The commission is led by a three-member team of human rights experts.
The UN experts said they prepared a list that contains the names of individuals and parties who were involved in Hammouri’s forcible expulsion, including airlines and their staff
“We have no doubt that the revocation of Salah Hammouri’s east Jerusalem residency permit based on an alleged ‘breach of allegiance’ to the state of Israel constitutes a war crime,” UN expert Chris Sidoti said.
“Demanding allegiance from protected people in occupied territory is a reprehensible violation of international humanitarian law. We have preserved information about the individuals who bear responsibility for what may amount to the war crime of unlawful deportation, including third parties such as airlines and their staff that assisted in the deportation,” he added.
Last year, Hamouri joined thousands of other Palestinians who have been deported for their activism against the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands. Rights groups say his deportation is against international law, and Amnesty International called it “part of the crime of apartheid.”
Before his deportation, Hammouri had spent a total of over eight years in Israeli prisons. His first arrest occurred when he was barely 16 years old during the second Palestinian Intifada (uprising) in 2001.
His latest stint in an Israeli jail started in March 2022 when he was detained without charge. It followed the revocation of his residency in occupied Jerusalem, the city where he was born and raised, and culminated in his deportation on December 18 to France, where he is a citizen.
