A/HRC/44/60 B Collective Punishment in the Occupied Palestinian Territory 36. Over the past 25 years, the United Nations Security Council, 52 the UN General Assembly, 53 the ICRC 54 and Palestinian, 55 Israeli 56 and international human rights organizations57 have criticized Israel, the occupying power, for its recurrent use of collective punishment against the protected Palestinian people. Former UN Secretary Generals Kofi Annan58 and Ban Ki-Moon59 both deplored Israel’s practice of collective punishment while in office. 37. Subsequently, important UN reports on the human rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territory have shone attention on Israel’s ongoing use of collective punishment. In 2009, the UN Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict held that the “deliberate actions” of the Israeli armed forces during the 2008-9 conflict and the “declared policies” of the Israeli government “cumulatively indicate the intention to inflict collective punishment on the people of the Gaza Strip.”60 In 2016, the UN Committee against Torture stated that punitive home demolitions constitute a breach of Article 16 of the Convention against Torture, and requested Israel to cease the practice.61 C Punitive Home Demolitions 38. Since the occupation began in 1967, Israel has punitively demolished or sealed approximately 2,000 Palestinian homes in the occupied territories.62 These targeted homes have included not only dwellings owned by a purported perpetrator of a crime, but also homes where he or she lived with their immediate families or other relatives and/or where the family homes were rented from a landlord. These demolitions proceeded even though the families or owners played no proven role in the alleged offence, having never been charged, let alone convicted. In the vast majority of cases, the home was not involved in the commission of the purported act. 39. The deliberate destruction of a home for punitive purposes has a shattering impact upon the families living there. The home represents their shelter, the sanctuary of their private lives, their most intimate memories, their communal lives together, their multi-generational traditions. Lost is the primary foundation of family wealth, as well as many essential belongings ranging from beds and kitchen wares to heirlooms and photographs. Abruptly, they must now live in tents or be lodged by relatives. In the aftermath, the family is invariably humiliated, destitute, uprooted, embittered and, for some, vengeful. In many cases, the perpetrator of the offense does not directly suffer, either because he or she is dead, has escaped or has been sentenced to a long term in prison.63 40. Israeli law invests extensive authority in the Military Commander of the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) to order the destruction of any homes or properties in the occupied territory where Palestinian individuals who have committed acts of resistance or terror live or have lived, or where their family lives. The legal authority of the Military Commander is 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 10 UNSC Resolution 1544 (19 May 2004). UNGA Resolution 58/99 (9 December 2003). https://www.icrc.org/en/doc/resources/documents/update/palestine-update-140610.htm. http://www.alhaq.org/publications/8083.html. https://www.btselem.org/razing/collective_punishment. https://www.hrw.org/report/1996/07/01/israels-closure-west-bank-and-gaza-strip. https://reliefweb.int/report/israel/israeli-destruction-buildings-gaza-illegal-annan-and-un-envoy-say . https://nhrc-qa.org/en/un-says-israel-collective-punishment-against-palestinians-in-gaza-unacceptable/ . https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/669889?ln=en, para. 1331. CAT/C/ISR/CO/5, para. 41. See: https://www.btselem.org/punitive_demolitions/statistics; S. Darcy, “Israeli’s Punitive Home Demolition Policy” (Al-Haq, 2003); and D. Simon, “The Demolition of Homes in the Israeli Occupied Territories” (1994), 19 Yale Journal of International Law 1. Society of St. Yves, Everyone Pays the Price (2017); M. Kremnitzer & L Saba-Habesch, “Home Demolitions” (2015), 4 Laws 216.