Side-event on the right to housing in Israel and Occupied Palestinian Territories

On March 4th, the Special Rapporteur Raquel Rolnik participated in an expert roundtable with human rights defenders organized by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, the Norwegian Refugee Council and Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, during the 22nd session of the UN Human Rights Council.

Entitled “The Violation of Housing, Land, and Planning Rights in Israel and the OPT: Expert Testimonies from the Field”, the side-event provided updates from the field and explored ways in which over 30 participants could operationalize the protection of human rights as articulated by the Special Rapporteur in her report.

The main topic concerned the discriminatory housing, land and planning policies that Israel is implementing inside the country as well as in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The participants also discussed Israel’s accountability regarding human rights violations in the Palestinian Territories and inside Israel as well as perspectives and the way forward for human rights defenders.

In addition to the Special Rapporteur, roundtable participants included Ibrahim Abu Kharbish (Jordan Valley Sheikh), Guillaume Charron (The Internal Displacement Monitoring Center – IDMC), Nadia Ben-Youssef (Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel), Carin Smaller (B’Tselem – The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories), Rania Madi (Badil – Resource Center for Palestinian Residency & Refugee Rights),  Wa’il Abul Raheem Mohammad Qut (The Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Centre) and  Stéphanie David (International Federation for Human Rights – FIDH). The roundtable was moderated by Charmain Mohamed of the Norwegian Refugee Council.

To read the Special Rapporteur’s report regarding her 2012 mission to Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, click here.

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