The lack of Palestinian human rights under Israel’s occupation is a plight that is going largely unnoticed by the international community.

Since 1948, over three and a half million Palestinian people have been forced to live under Israeli occupation in areas such as the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Large walls have been built to section off areas, imprisoning towns and villages and effectively blocking the people from their family and work.

The wall surrounding Gaza creates ghetto-like living conditions that deny Palestinians basic resources such as food and water. Over half of the Palestinian people live on less than $2 a day, and an increasing amount suffer from malnutrition and other related illnesses.

The Gaza Strip, which is populated by around 1.4 million Palestinians, is one of the most impoverished areas.

The Gaza electrical power station was forced to close this year due to lack of fuel, and embargos have been placed upon the market in a blatant attempt to strangle the economy and starve the people. Water access is impeded by the Israeli authority and Israeli water companies who can close the well’s access at any time.

After living for weeks with no energy and under an Israeli supplies blockade (in response to the Hamas takeover), the desperation of the Gazan people has reached its limit. In January, the Gazan people blew up the wall along the Egypt border and hundreds fled into Egypt to stock up on food and fuel supplies.

Despite this clear evidence of the suffering of the Palestinian people, Moammar Mashni from Australians for Palestine says, “Unfortunately, the western media have not reported the facts on the ground as they currently exist.”

The Palestinian people are denied the right to their own property and their freedom of movement is restricted by the wall, checkpoints, bypass roads and settlements. 

Palestinian communities are fragmented and many of the people are divided from their means of livelihood, health access, schooling and other services. 

However, as Mashni says of the Australian and Western media in general, “Rarely if ever, does the suffering of the Palestinians rate a mention in the print or on the TV.”

The dispossessed Palestinian people deserve the right of self-determination and self-rule. In Part 1, Article 1 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights it states that all people have the right to “freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.”

But Mashni affirms, Palestinian citizens of Israel “do not enjoy the same rights as their Jewish neighbours.” 

After World War II, the global community cried out for the establishment of two states in Palestine. In 1948 an Israeli state was recognised – but the idea of an Arab state was banished.

Mashni says, “Palestinian land has been illegally expropriated under the guises of ‘security’.”

The Palestinian people rely strongly on aid donations. This was highlighted by the 2007 United Nations Conference on Trade and Development report, which found that poverty in the occupied territories has reached record high levels and unemployment is at around 30%. The restrictions on the economy and trade mean the people have to buy goods off Israel and, as a result, have no way of sustaining their own means of subsistence.  

Although the apartheid wall and the harsh living conditions of the Palestinian people have been condemned by the UN, the issue still attracts little attention from the global community.

While the Palestinian people are portrayed as ‘terrorists’, the Israeli army’s continual acts of terror are justified. Between 2001 and 2005 there were over three times more Palestinians killed than Israelis, and the gap continues to increase.

 The Israeli Authority continues to receive around $2billion of military aid from the US every year without upholding any conditionality or accountability.

As Mashni says, “Until such time that the rest of the world is prepared to make Israel accountable for its heinous actions, the suffering will unfortunately continue.”