The short version
- Amnesty’s chief investigator in Israel and Palestine, Budour Hassan, documents abuses and war crimes in Gaza
- She uncovers cases where three generations of families are wiped out in the war
- 34,535 Palestinians have so far been killed, and 1.7 million of Gaza’s 2.3 million inhabitants are displaced
- Amnesty condemns both Israel’s warfare and Hamas’s attacks, and demands the release of hostages from both sides
- Budour Hassan urges Norwegians to demand justice and a ceasefire
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At the same time as negotiations for a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip are ongoing, Israeli tanks have entered Rafah on the night of Tuesday. This despite the fact that the entire international community, including the EU and the USA, has asked them not to.
In the last 24 hours alone, at least 54 people have been killed in Israeli attacks, according to Gaza’s health authorities.
Watch video of the tanks entering Rafah on Tuesday:
Amnesty’s chief investigator in Israel and Palestine, Budour Hassan, is in continuous contact with those who are now under attack.
– Residents we speak to tell us that yesterday was apocalyptic, says Budour to VG.
Most of the more than one million civilians in Rafah are there because they have sought refuge after being driven from their homes. Israel spread leaflets at the front asking them to evacuate.
– They don’t know where to flee, they don’t know where to go, they don’t know how to keep their children safe when there is no safe place. Those trapped in eastern Rafah told us that the night has been hell on earth, says Hassan to VG.
At the same time that Israel started its ground offensive in Rafah, new figures on the dead and injured were published by the Gaza Ministry of Health.
It is day 214 of the war, and 34,789 Palestinians have been killed.
The messages that come to the news agencies about Gaza are often poor in details and rich in numbers.
But for Amnesty’s chief investigator Hassan, every single one of these lives is a potential case for her to investigate. Behind every number are names, faces, dreams and stories.
Through his work, the 34-year-old Amnesty investigator has documented how tens of thousands of families in Gaza have been completely wiped out in this war.
Now Hassan is in Oslo to tell about the reality on the ground for the Palestinian population.
– Perhaps the most shocking are the cases where I see the systematic annihilation of three generations: Grandparents, parents and their children. Entire families are eliminated, says Hassan to VG.
But the worst is often where one survives, she says. Someone who may have lost their children and must live with the guilt of being the only ones who were allowed to live.
– One of the really painful things that many of the survivors tell us is that they don’t even have pictures left of their loved ones, because their phones were destroyed in the attack.
Budour Hassan has worked with human rights work in Israel and the Palestinian territories for a number of years, but the situation she sees in Gaza now has no parallel, says Hassan.
– The entire system that was promoted and built by the architects of the world order after the Second World War is now on the verge of collapse. Because international human rights and humanitarian law are now being violated, and those behind the war crimes are not even held accountable, says the Amnesty investigator.
The Israeli army, for its part, claims that it sets a “gold standard” for modern warfare, and refers to itself as “the most humane army ever” to NRK.
From his office in Ramallah, Budour Hassan is daily close to attacks and violence in the West Bank, and works closely with Amnesty’s field workers inside the Gaza Strip.
Hassan tells how she and her colleague inside the Gaza Strip work for weeks, sometimes months, with documentation and reports on what they believe to be abuses against the civilian population.
Her colleague visits locations they want to investigate, where they collect evidence, check medical records, analyze gunshot residue to determine where it originated and take photographs. Hassan interviews eyewitnesses and follows up on the information they provide. Then she checks whether Israel has published anything about the incident, or contacts Israel for a response to what they find. Only then will they allow themselves to publish a report from the incident, she says.
The investigator she will investigate crimes on both sides.
When Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, around 1,140 people were killed. Among them were 332 Israeli soldiers and 57 police officers. The others were civilians, among them 36 children, according to NTB.
The successive Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip have driven 1.7 million of Gaza’s 2.3 million inhabitants to flee their homes.
According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, around 42 percent of the 34,535 killed are children.
Amnesty not only condemns Israel’s warfare in Gaza, they have also condemned Hamas’ attack on 7 October.
The first report Amnesty came out with after 7 October was precisely about Hamas’s attack on Israel. Budour Hassan is still working to investigate the abuse Israelis suffered that day.
Grounded in human rights and humanitarian law, Amnesty demands that both sides release the hostages they hold.
Hassan is traveling in several European countries in connection with the launch of Amnesty’s annual report on the state of human rights around the world, of which the situation of the Palestinians is naturally a central part. In Oslo, she met Storting politicians and Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide.
– Generally speaking, Norway has been among the better countries when it comes to handling the conflict, by demanding a ceasefire and emphasizing the importance of accountability, says Hassan. The human rights activist Hassan nevertheless has some points for improvement:
Norway can do this
Due diligence in arms exportsNorway does not directly export weapons to Israel, but exports parts for F-35 fighters to the USA, which in turn may end up in Israeli hands since Israel uses the F-35 in its military campaign in Gaza. Even when weapons are indirectly exported that can be used in serious violations of human rights, greater caution must be exercised, she believes.
Norwegian companies, especially the oil companies and the Oil Fund, should not invest in any companies that are complicit in human rights abuses, including those that have connections with settlements in the occupied West Bank. Considerable pressure must be placed on these funds to stop any direct or indirect connection with companies responsible for violations of international law, says Hassan.
It is also important that Norway supports and promotes all measures for accountability and international justice. Several mechanisms should be established in Norway to support the Palestinians’ fight for justice and human rights, including completely stopping all trade in settlements, Hassan believes.
Norway has been asked to increase its support for Palestinian human rights organizations to fill the void that has been created after other countries have withdrawn their funding.
– We would also like to request that Norway use all its power to put pressure on Israel to grant access to Gaza for those investigating human rights violations, says Hassan.
Finally, Amnesty’s investigator has a call for most Norwegians: That they continue to take to the streets, and continue to demand justice and a ceasefire.
– It can be difficult to continue when almost seven months have passed, and sometimes we are blunted by the brutality of what is happening. But what is happening in Gaza should never be normalised. It should never be normal for children to be torn apart and rendered unrecognizable because a massive bomb has hit their home. It must not be normal for children to starve and for people to live through yet another displacement. All this we see should not be normal.
