Our current focus is on ending the aggression on Palestine: stop complicity and ensure accountability
Situation Overview in the Occupied Palestinian Territories
Since October 7th 2023, for over 425 days, Israel has been relentlessly and indiscriminately bombing and laying siege to Gaza, using starvation as a method of warfare against its 2,3 million citizens, 90% of whom have been displaced. It is targeting civilians while destroying civilian infrastructure, targeting humanitarian workers and aid convoys, preventing food, medicine and basic supplies from reaching the sick, injured and starving population. Israeli forces have killed more than 46’000 Palestinians, 17’500 of whom were children, 70% of whom were women and children, and injured more than 106’000 Palestinians. Tens of thousands are missing while many deaths are unaccounted for, leading experts to estimate in June 2024 that the real death toll then might already have been closer to 186’000 (according to a study by the Lancet journal).
In the West Bank and in East Jerusalem, Israeli forces and settlers have continued to destroy Palestinian homes, displace the population, subject them to arbitrary violence, arrests and murder, while additionally bombing, raiding and laying siege to the Palestinian territory. Since October 7th 2023, Israelis have killed more than 803 Palestinians in the West Bank, including at least 168 children, and injured over 6’250 people.
The State of Israel is currently holding more than 11’900 Palestinians in arbitrary detention, denying them access to justice, subjecting them to torture and cruel and inhumane treatment, resulting already in more than 300 Palestinian deaths in Israeli prisons and detention facilities in the past year. The Israeli State also maintains an oppressive apartheid regime on the population living within its State-designated boundaries.
About 100 Israeli hostages taken on October 7th 2023 are believed to remain trapped in Gaza due to the Israeli government’s refusal to conclude a ceasefire deal, for which the hostages’ families have been demonstrating against the Israeli government, and which would have seen the hostages exchanged for Palestinian detainees and the cessation of hostilities. They are unable to be safely released due to the constant Israeli bombardments and attacks, in which some have been directly killed by Israeli forces.
Situation Overview on Swiss government policy
Despite Switzerland’s public commitment to its humanitarian tradition, being the home country of the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Geneva Conventions on International Humanitarian Law, the current government is failing to meet its obligations under international law: namely, to protect civilian life, to stop the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity, and to prevent genocide.
Since October 7th 2023, the Swiss government has neither acknowledged nor condemned the crimes flagrantly committed by Israel against the Palestinian people, despite their detailed documentation and public character. It has publicly proclaimed its support for Israel’s aggression, which it has falsely labeled as self-defense, contradicting the International Court of Justice. It has provided financial support and diplomatic cover to Israel’s crimes, failing to cease collaborating with the apartheid State and to implement sanctions as warranted by ICJ rulings and UN resolutions. By intending on definitely cutting its funding to UNRWA and consequently failing to provide life-saving aid to the Palestinian population as it faces extermination, the Swiss government is risking complicity in the crimes committed against the Palestinian people.
The Swiss government must act urgently to prevent the commission of further war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in Palestine, and to stop the ongoing Israeli massacres in Gaza and the West Bank. It must work towards an immediate ceasefire and the retreat of all occupation forces and settlers from the occupied Palestinian territories through diplomatic measures including sanctions, provide humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza via UNRWA financing and ensure accountability for the grave international crimes committed against the Palestinian people.