By Wallace Mawire
On the occasion of the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, Palestine Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Tamer Almassri, has condemned the Israeli occupation authorities’ systematic use of enforced disappearance against thousands of Palestinian detainees from the Gaza Strip during the ongoing genocidal war. He said the fate and whereabouts of many of the individuals remain entirely unknown.
The State of Palestine has also emphasized that withholding information, refusing to disclose names, locations and medical conditions and denying access to families, legal counsel and human rights organisations are not isolated violations.
The Ambassador said the practices form an integrated policy designed to strip detainees of all legal protection. “This deliberate concealment fosters an environment conducive to torture, ill-treatment, and medical neglect entirely shielded from oversight and accountability,” he said.
According to the Ambassador, under international law, enforced disappearance is absolutely prohibited and cannot be justified under any circumstances, including during war or state of emergency. He said as defined by the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, it consists of the deprivation of liberty combined with a refusal to acknowledge the detention or the concealment of the victim’s fate, placing them outside the protection of the law.
Ambassador Almassri also stressed that ending enforced disappearance and determining the fate of the detainees is not a humanitarian demand that can be deferred, but a genuine test of the international community’s commitment to upholding international law and to halting the ongoing course of genocide.
He said the systematic policy occurs alongside devastating casualties in the Gaza Strip, as the death toll from Israel’s ongoing aggression against the Gaza Strip has risen to 73,454 Palestinians, with 174,486 others injured, since October 2023.
He said more than 12,000 people remain trapped beneath the rubble and along roads, as ambulance and rescue crews continue to be unable to reach them amid Israel’s relentless bombing of Gaza, despite the so-called ceasefire.
Ambassador Almassri also condemned Israeli politicians for leveraging military escalation and the loss of Palestinian lives for domestic electoral gains in their upcoming elections.