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NEW YORK CITY: A group of UN human rights experts on Thursday condemned what they described as enforced disappearances of Palestinian civilians at food aid distribution sites in Gaza.

They called on Israeli authorities to end this “heinous crime” against an already starving and traumatized population.

“Reports of enforced disappearances targeting starving civilians seeking their basic right to food are not only shocking but amount to torture,” said Gabriella Citroni, the chair-rapporteur of the UN’s Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances.

“Using food as a tool to conduct targeted and mass disappearances needs to end, now.”

The group of experts also included Francesca Albanese, special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967 and Michael Fakhri, special rapporteur on the right to food.

They cited reports of individuals, including at least one child, disappearing after visiting aid distribution centers operated by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation in Rafah. These sites, they said, have also come under aerial bombardment and gunfire, resulting in mass casualties among civilians already facing severe hunger.

According to the UN, Israeli forces are operating in and around these aid-distribution areas and are allegedly involved in detentions and disappearances of people seeking humanitarian assistance.

“We are particularly concerned that, once again, the Palestinian people have been targeted and punished as such,” said Albanese. “In the most desperate moment of man-made starvation, they are being denied life-saving aid and subjected to further violence.”

The experts warned that the rising number of disappearances at aid sites could deter desperate civilians from seeking food assistance, exacerbating the risk of famine in Gaza. Fakhri said that this represented a fundamental violation of the right to food.

“Enforced disappearances in this context are part of a broader attack on the right to access food and survive,” he added.

The experts accused Israeli authorities of refusing to provide information about the fate or whereabouts of detained individuals, describing this as a clear breach of international law.

“The failure to acknowledge deprivation of liberty by state agents, and refusal to acknowledge detention, constitute an enforced disappearance,” said Citroni.

“This is a violation of the absolute and non-derogable prohibition against enforced disappearances.”

The experts said that such actions must be investigated thoroughly and impartially, and those found to be responsible for them must be held accountable.

“The obligation to investigate and punish enforced disappearances is a jus cogens (compelling law) norm of international law,” said Ana Lorena Delgadillo Perez, a member of the working group.

“It must not be delayed or obstructed under any circumstances.”

The experts also raised concern over the reliance by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation on private military security contractors at its aid distribution sites.

Aua Balde, another member of the working group, described the current GHF arrangement as an “inhumane aid system” and called for it to be immediately dismantled in favor of a UN-led humanitarian mechanism.

Special rapporteurs are part of what is known as the special procedures of the UN Human Rights Council. They are independent experts who work on a voluntary basis, are not members of UN staff and are not paid for their work.

BEIRUT: As more Palestinian refugee camps handed over caches of weapons to the Lebanese army this week, a Lebanese government official told The Associated Press that the disarmament effort could pave the way for granting Palestinian refugees in Lebanon more legal rights.

Ramez Dimashkieh, head of the Lebanese-Palestinian Dialogue Committee, a government body that serves as an interlocutor between Palestinian refugees and officials, said his group is working on proposed legislation that they hope to introduce by the end of the year that could improve the situation of Lebanon’s approximately 200,000 Palestinian refugees.

Palestinian refugees in Lebanon are not given citizenship, ostensibly to preserve their right to go back to the homes they fled or were forced from during the 1948 creation of the state of Israel, which now bans them from returning. They are prohibited from working in many professions, have few legal protections and can’t own property.

The proposed legislation under being drafted would not confer Lebanese nationality on the refugees, Dimashkieh said, but would strengthen their labor and property rights.

“If people see a serious move forward in terms of arms delivery and they see the Palestinians here … are serious about transforming into a civil society rather than militarized camps, it will make the discourse much easier,” he said.

A first step

Last week, Palestinian factions started handing over some of the weapons held in the Burj Al-Barajneh refugee camp on the outskirts of Beirut to the Lebanese army, an initial step in implementing a plan announced by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Lebanese President Joseph Aoun three months earlier for removing arms from the camps.

The step of removing weapons from the camps was widely seen as a precursor to the much more difficult step of disarming the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, which last year fought a bruising war with Israel. The group has been under domestic and international pressure since then to give up its remaining arsenal, which it has so far refused to do.

Only one pickup truck loaded with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades left Burj Al-Barajneh last week, leading many to dismiss the initiative in the Palestinian camps as ineffective or purely symbolic.

Dimashkieh acknowledged that “there was a lot of cynicism about the quantity and quality of the weapons delivered,” but insisted that the government is serious about following through.

“Whatever weapons are given, they’re weapons which are now in the possession of the Lebanese Armed Forces,” he said. “So we should be happy about that.”

On Thursday, another three camps in southern Lebanon handed over weapons, including some Grad rockets as well as RPGs, machine guns and hand grenades.

A move toward civil administration

The 12 Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon aren’t under the control of Lebanese authorities, and rival Palestinian factions have clashed inside the camps in recent years, inflicting casualties and affecting nearby areas.

In the Ein el Hilweh camp near the southern port city of Sidon, rounds of fighting between members of Abbas’s Fatah movement and rival Islamist factions in 2023 killed around 30 people, wounded hundreds and displaced thousands.

The fighting also left the schools in one of two school complexes in the camp run by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees “heavily damaged to the extent that we are unable to use them,” said Dorothee Klaus, UNRWA director in Lebanon. The cash-strapped agency does “not have the resources currently to reopen the schools,” she said.

While UNRWA is not involved in the disarmament effort currently underway, Klaus said, “We very much hope that this leads to a situation of safety and security and stability with a functioning civil administration.”

Eventually, Dimashkieh said, the objective is for the camps to be patrolled by Lebanese police or internal security forces while being governed by civilian Palestinian officials, although he acknowledged that there would be “a transitional period” before that happens.

Abbas’s administration launched an overhaul of the Palestinian Authority’s leadership in Lebanon a few months ago, including the removal of the former Palestinian ambassador and many security officials and staff. Dimashkieh said that a Palestinian delegation had recently visited to pave the way for elections of new “popular committees” that serve as de facto municipal authorities in the camps.

Palestinian factions opposed to Abbas, including Hamas and its allies, have rejected the plan to hand over weapons in the camps, and even members of Abbas’ Fatah movement have sent mixed signals, with some officials saying last week that only “illegal” weapons would be handed over, not those belonging to organized factions.

However, on Thursday, Sobhi Abu Arab, the head of the Palestinian National Security Forces in
Lebanon, said, “We are doing our part as the Fatah movement and the Palestinian Liberation Organization to implement” Abbas’s decision.

Dimashkieh said his group has also had “initial talks” with Hamas and that he is “quite optimistic that we will make headway” with bringing them on board.