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(New York) – The government of Trinidad and Tobago should urgently bring home Trinidadian children and their mothers imprisoned in Iraq because of their alleged association with the Islamic State (ISIS), Human Rights Watch said today. Four Trinidadian women have been held along with their seven children, aged approximately 7 to 15, for nearly seven years.

On May 2, 2024, Iraqi prison authorities forcibly removed two Trinidadian brothers, ages 13 and 15, from their mother’s cell in Rusafa women’s prison in Baghdad and transferred them to a cell with other youths. Their mother, in a voice recording shared with Human Rights Watch, expressed fear that the two boys would be transferred to another prison. She said her youngest son suffered from asthma, anemia, and malnutrition.

“Trinidad and Tobago has publicly promised that it would bring home its nationals from Iraq and Syria, but not a single Trinidadian has returned home in more than five years,” said Jo Becker, children’s rights advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. “These children, who are not responsible for any crime, should be in school in Trinidad and Tobago, not languishing in an Iraqi prison.”

The mother in the voice recording expressed further concern about her younger son with health problems: “They took my son from me, they told me he was too big to be staying in a cell with us. They put him in a cell with about 10 boys. We have no education for our children. Nothing. We are going on our seventh year in prison and our children are growing up here.”

Iraqi authorities are holding an estimated 100 children with their mothers at Rusafa prison. Many of the women are foreign nationals who have been charged with or convicted of terrorism-related offenses.

The imprisoned women said that they are willing for their children to be returned to Trinidad and Tobago without them. They said the Red Cross has visited them and that they communicated with the repatriation committee established by Trinidadian Prime Minister Keith Rowley in March 2023, but have had no response from the government regarding their or their children’s situation.

The four women were convicted of ISIS affiliation by Iraqi courts. Human Rights Watch has found serious, widespread flaws in the prosecutions of terrorism suspects, including foreign women. Three of the women are held with five of the children in Rusafa prison, where the women are serving 20-year sentences. A court in the Kurdistan region of Iraq convicted the fourth, who is being held with her two children in Erbil. She recently completed her 6-year sentence and is technically free to leave the prison, but the Trinidadian government has made no effort to assist her return.

The Iraqi authorities’ apparent denial of the children’s right to education over many years, possible responsibility for their lack of access to health care and adequate food, and recent separation of children from their mothers should galvanize Trinidadian authorities to urgently seek their nationals’ repatriation, Human Rights Watch said. The Iraqi and Trinidadian authorities should weigh the children’s best interests and right to family unity and consider repatriating both the children and their mothers, so their children could regularly visit their mothers as they serve out their sentences in Trinidad and Tobago, Human Rights Watch said.

“We are here just waiting, and time is wasting,” said one of the imprisoned Trinidadian women in a voice recording shared with Human Rights Watch on May 4. “Our children remain uneducated without any knowledge.”

A February 2023 Human Rights Watch report documented the unlawful detention of Trinidadian nationals in life-threatening conditions in Kurdish-controlled northeast Syria. Since 2019, at least 39 countries have repatriated well over 8,000 of their nationals from the region. Trinidad and Tobago has repatriated none of their nationals during that time.

“Trinidad and Tobago’s prime minister has pledged to bring the Trinidadians detained in Iraq and Syria home,” Becker said. “He shouldn’t wait any longer.”

(Jerusalem) – Israel is contravening the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) legally binding orders by obstructing the entry of lifesaving aid and services into Gaza, Human Rights Watch said today. Since January 2024, the court has twice ordered provisional measures requiring Israel to enable the provision of basic services and humanitarian assistance as part of South Africa’s case alleging that Israel is violating the Genocide Convention of 1948.

On May 5, Israeli authorities closed the Kerem Shalom crossing after a Hamas rocket attack, and on May 7, they seized the Rafah crossing as part of its incursion in the area, thus blocking aid from entering and people from leaving Gaza via the primary crossings used in recent months. While Israeli authorities had allowed more aid trucks to enter in the preceding weeks and opened an additional crossing and a port for aid entry, the increase has been modest and nowhere near enough to meet the overwhelming need, according to United Nations and nongovernmental aid agencies. The groups said Israel continued to block critical aid items, and only a small proportion of the limited aid has been reaching northern Gaza, where it’s vitally needed.

“Despite children dying from starvation and famine in Gaza, the Israeli authorities are still blocking aid critical for the survival of Gaza’s population in defiance of the World Court,” said Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch. “With each day that Israeli authorities block lifesaving aid, more Palestinians are at risk of dying.” 

On January 26, the ICJ ordered Israel to “take immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian aid.” In light of the “spread of famine and starvation,” the court imposed additional measures on March 28, ordering Israel to ensure the unhindered provision of humanitarian assistance, in full cooperation with the UN, including by opening new land crossing points.

The court’s March order required Israel to report to the ICJ on the implementation of the court’s measures within one month. However, as of May 2, Israeli authorities continued to obstruct basic services and entry of fuel and lifesaving aid, acts that amount to war crimes and include the use of starvation of civilians as a weapon of war. 

According to the UN, the average number of aid trucks into Gaza through Kerem Shalom and Rafah crossings increased by only 24 trucks a day in the month following the order – from an average of 162 trucks a day between February 29 and March 28 to 186 trucks a day from March 29 to April 28. This is only about 37 percent of the number that entered Gaza each day before October 7, 2023, when 80 percent of Gaza’s population relied on aid amid Israel's more than 16-year-long unlawful closure. 

Israeli authorities have blamed the UN for distribution delays, but, as the occupying power, Israel is obliged to provide for the welfare of the occupied population and ensure that the humanitarian needs of Gaza’s population are met.

In response to United States government pressure, Israeli authorities opened the Erez crossing – a checkpoint between Israel and northern Gaza – for aid deliveries on May 1, allowing 30 trucks to enter. It's unclear whether further trucks have entered via Erez since then. In April, they also began allowing some aid to come from Ashdod port, a seaport south of Tel Aviv. In an April 30 response to a High Court petition challenging the restrictions on aid, the Israeli government said that it was also planning on opening an additional northern aid crossing.

Despite these increases, on May 1, Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders or MSF) stated that essential items like oxygen tanks, generators, refrigerators, and critical medical equipment continued to be blocked, that very little of the aid is reaching northern Gaza, and that there is “no clarity or consistency to what is allowed into Gaza.”

In early April, Human Rights Watch researchers went to Egypt's North Sinai region, which borders Gaza, and spoke to workers for 11 UN agencies and aid organizations sending aid into Gaza. All said that Israeli authorities continue to obstruct the entry of aid via Egypt. They said that the amount of aid, despite recentincreases, and the arbitrary rejection of critical items, meant that the colossal need for aid is not being met. 

Aid workers said the Israeli authorities have provided no list of barred items and inspections staff are rejecting entire truckloads in an ad hoc manner with no explanation or possibility of appeal. “They refuse to give a list [of items that are barred from entry], saying it is an individual determination,” one said. Adding to the opacity of the process, they said that Israeli authorities generally don’t allow aid agency representatives to be at the checkpoints where aid trucks are being inspected.

Several people said that Israeli authorities, in some cases, bar items they consider “dual use,” which could be used for military purposes, but there is no clear list of what items are included. In response to a freedom of information request for lists of so called “dual use” items, Israeli authorities said that they were still using a list of dual use items that they had published in 2008. Tania Hary, executive director of the Israeli human rights organization Gisha, told Human Rights Watch, “We see them interpreting the list very broadly, which is nothing new, except it’s taking place on the backdrop of a humanitarian catastrophe.”

Since Hamas-led fighters attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, high-ranking Israeli officials have made public statements expressing their aim to deprive civilians in Gaza of food, water and fuel – reflecting the policy being carried out by Israeli forces. Other Israeli officials have publicly stated that humanitarian aid to Gaza would be conditioned either on the release of hostages unlawfully held by Hamas or Hamas’ destruction.

Israel’s Coordinator of the Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), the military body responsible for coordinating humanitarian aid into Gaza, has complete control over what can be taken into Gaza. After being inspected in Egypt, humanitarian aid trucks must go through two Israeli-controlled inspection sites: Nitzana and Kerem Shalom. People interviewed said trucks often have to wait for days, and sometimes weeks, for inspections due to limited working hours and scanning machines, as well as additional inspection procedures added since the October 7 attacks in Israel.

One UN employee told Human Rights Watch that a truck full of medical supplies had been sitting at the border for a month awaiting inspection.

Aid workers said that Israeli authorities have rejected most items with solar panels, motors, some metal parts, and even items stored in wooden crates, irrespective of their content. They said items like generators, water filtration systems, and oxygen, are consistently rejected. If any single item on a truck is rejected, the entire truck is denied entry, several aid workers said. 

Human Rights Watch wrote to COGAT on April 2 seeking comment regarding Israel’s obstruction of aid but has not received a response.

Several people said that some trucks had been rejected several times for unknown reasons. They said aid workers tried to guess what might have caused the rejection and modified the shipments accordingly, but they were sometimes rejected again. “It’s a mystery with rejections,” a World Food Program worker said. “It’s not consistent. Some of the same items that have been approved to go in before are then rejected later.” 

Aid workers said that more than six months into the hostilities, agencies are now automatically filtering out key lifesaving items from the trucks, only sending in what they anticipate will be allowed entry. That means they leave out critical items, including generators to provide electricity for equipment critical to health, water, and sanitation; repair items for water and sanitation infrastructure; and medical equipment like x-ray machines, because they anticipate rejection.

Since November, aid agencies sometimes have submitted lists of aid items to COGAT for preapproval. However, even when preapproval was given, on many occasions the items were still rejected at the checkpoints. The World Food Program staff member said that in one instance, the United Nations Population Fund, an agency focused on reproductive and maternal health, had received preapproval to send a maternity clinic to Gaza, but Israeli authorities twice rejected it at the border without explanation. 

Several countries have responded to the Israeli government’s unlawful restrictions by airdropping aid. The US also pledged to build a temporary seaport in Gaza. However, aid groups and UNofficials have said such efforts are inadequate to prevent a famine. 

In its March provisional measures order, the ICJ stated, “there is an urgent need to increase the capacity and number of open land crossing points into Gaza and to maintain them open so as to increase the flow of aid delivery,” as “there is no substitute for land routes and entry points from Israel into Gaza to ensure the effective and efficient delivery of food, water, medical and humanitarian assistance.” 

Israeli authorities should urgently open additional land crossings and lift bans on critical aid items. They should provide aid agencies with a list of banned items and provide specifications for items that are allowed under certain requirements. Inspectors should provide written explanations for any rejections and allow agencies to appeal rejection decisions, Human Rights Watch said. 

On May 4, Cindy McCain, an American who is director of the World Food Program, said, “There is famine — full-blown famine — in the north, and it's moving its way south.” On April 22, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reported that “1.1 million people face catastrophic levels of hunger.” 

“Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians face famine and many risk dying of starvation following Israel’s continued disregard for the law,” Shakir said. “The countries that continue to send arms risk being complicit in Israel’s atrocities against the Palestinians.”

Advocates of media freedom in the Philippines got some good news within days of World Press Freedom Day on May 3. On April 29, police arrested a third suspect in the on-air shooting of radio broadcaster Juan Jumalon in Mindanao. And a court in Manila on May 6 sentenced the gunman responsible for the murder of the radio commentator Percival Mabasa, popularly known as “Percy Lapid,” to up to 16 years in prison. The Philippines normally draws global attention for having one of the worst records for impunity for killings of journalists.

The Presidential Task Force on Media Security proclaimed the Philippines to be a safer place for journalists. And President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said that he will ensure journalists can do their jobs without fear.

The arrest in the Jumalon killing and the sentencing of Lapid’s murderer, who accepted a plea bargain, do not directly address the bigger issue in those two cases. And that is that the individuals who masterminded these two murders remain at large.

The Marcos administration needs to do a lot more if the Philippines is going to discard its reputation as one of the world’s most dangerous places to practice journalism and ensure an environment in which members of the media can do their jobs safely.

Harassment and threats to Filipino journalists also come from the authorities. At least one journalist, Frenchie Mae Cumpio, has been in police detention for more than four years. Many journalists have also been subjected to government “red-tagging,” the practice of accusing them of being members or sympathizers of the communist insurgency. Being red-tagged can lead to threats, unlawful surveillance, harassment and even death.

Rather than resting on the laurels of the pending Jumalon trial and the incomplete Lapid case, the Marcos administration needs to rachet up its effots to protect journalists. It should immediately end the practice of red-tagging journalists and ensure harassment and killings of journalists are fully investigated and prosecuted, whoever is responsible. Foreign governments and donors have an important role to play in this and should scrutinize Philippine government claims on media freedom and the need to end impunity for attacks on the press.

(New York) – United Nations member countries should use negotiations on the “Pact for the Future” to commit to strengthening human rights, including promoting economic justice and protecting the right to a healthy environment, Human Rights Watch said.

The UN Pact for the Future, currently being negotiated, is expected to be adopted at the Summit of the Future, a special UN meeting slated for September 2024. Among the issues being discussed by the 193 UN member countries are economic policy reforms and how to realize the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, as well as the emphasis that should be placed on human rights generally.

“The Pact for the Future shouldn’t become another UN document that gets adopted and then ignored,” said Louis Charbonneau, UN director at Human Rights Watch. “Governments should commit to action to end widening economic inequalities that deny billions of people their rights and a climate crisis that’s taking a mounting toll on lives and livelihoods around the globe.” 

Many governments that recognize the importance of sustainable development often ignore that human rights are key to achieving this goal, Human Rights Watch said. They need to confront climate change and responsibly manage new technologies. And while most governments acknowledge the importance of complying with international humanitarian law in conflicts, they disagree on how to address atrocities against civilians in Gaza, Sudan, and Ukraine.

Although the final text will be non-binding, the pact presents a critical opportunity to affirm a vision of human rights that can help bridge some of the sharp divisions between governments on these and other issues. In the process, governments should strengthen the ability of the UN system to deliver on the UN Charter by protecting and promoting peace and security, development, and human rights.

Some governments were disappointed with the initial draft of the pact due to what they considered its scant attention to human rights, diplomats told Human Rights Watch.

A number of countries are seeking to strengthen the human rights language in the draft pact. However, China, Russia, Cuba, Iran, and others have sought to weaken, dilute, or delete references to human rights.

Western governments are partly to blame for leaving space to those critical of a human rights approach, Human Rights Watch said. Their selective application of human rights undermines the credibility of such an agenda, particularly for countries in the Global South. While the United States and other Western countries justifiably condemn Russia’s atrocities in Ukraine, for example, many of them have not shown the same resolve concerning Israel’s atrocities in Gaza. While the European Union says it champions human rights protection globally, it opposes efforts at the UN to make the international tax system fairer for developing countries.

All governments’ assertions in support of human rights would resonate more powerfully if they applied them consistently, including in their own countries and with their friends and allies, Human Rights Watch said.

Rather than dismissing the views of countries in the Global South on international financial reforms, Global North states should support much-needed changes to the international financial architecture. Those include aligning international financial institutions’ policies and practices with human rights, supporting efforts to achieve a global tax treaty, combatting illicit financial flows, and reducing governments’ debt burdens.

The concept of a “human rights economy,” which has been championed by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, offers the potential to meet the legitimate demands of Global South countries through a more holistic approach to human rights.  

Governments should also ensure that the pact reaffirms the centrality of human rights in confronting the climate crisis. They should explicitly endorse the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, recognized by the UN General Assembly in 2022, while emphasizing the urgent need for phasing out fossil fuels through a just transition that is consistent with human rights. Fossil fuels are the primary driver of the climate crisis, and all stages of their use have been linked to severe human rights harm. 

The pact should also highlight the importance of civil society and the rights to freedom of speech, association, and peaceful assembly. The upcoming UN Civil Society Conference in Nairobi, Kenya on May 9-10 is an opportunity for the UN leadership and delegations overseeing the drafting process to hear from hundreds of civil society representatives from around the world. The drafters should listen carefully to civil society priorities for the Pact for the Future and its two annexes, the Global Digital Compact on “shared principles for an open, free and secure digital future for all” and the Declaration on Future Generations. Outreach to civil society organizations in the drafting process has so far been haphazard.

“Instead of standing by while governments trample on human rights, or selectively condemning abuses by their adversaries while ignoring those of their friends, UN member countries should commit to ending repression wherever it occurs and improving everyone’s lives,” Charbonneau said.

(Beirut) – An Israeli strike on an emergency and relief center in south Lebanon on March 27, 2024, was an unlawful attack on civilians that failed to take all necessary precautions, Human Rights Watch said today. If the attack on civilians was carried out intentionally or recklessly, it should be investigated as an apparent war crime. The strike, using a US-made Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) guidance kit and an Israeli-made 500-pound (about 230 kilograms) general purpose bomb, killed seven emergency and relief volunteers from the town of Habbarieh, five kilometers north of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

The strike, after midnight, targeted a residential structure that housed the Emergency and Relief Corps of the Lebanese Succour Association, a nongovernmental humanitarian organization that provides emergency, rescue, first aid training, and relief services in Lebanon. Human Rights Watch found no evidence of a military target at the site. Just a week before, Israel reportedly submitted written assurances to the US State Department that US-provided weapons were not being used in violation of international law.

“Israeli forces used a US weapon to conduct a strike that killed seven civilian relief workers in Lebanon who were merely doing their jobs,” said Ramzi Kaiss, Lebanon researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Israel’s assurances to the United States that it is abiding by the laws of war ring hollow. The US needs to acknowledge reality and cut off arms to Israel.”

The United States should immediately suspend arms sales and military assistance to Israel given evidence that the Israeli military is using US weapons unlawfully, Human Rights Watch said. Lebanon’s Foreign Ministry should also swiftly move forward with filing a declaration with the International Criminal Court, enabling it to investigate and prosecute crimes within the court’s jurisdiction on Lebanese territory since October 2023.

In a Telegram post on March 27, the Israeli military said that “fighter jets struck a military compound in the area of al-Habbariyeh in southern Lebanon” and that “a significant terrorist operative belonging to the ‘al-Jama’a al-Islamiyya’ [The Islamic Group] organization who advanced attacks against Israeli territory was eliminated along with additional terrorists who were with him.” A parliament member representing The Islamic Group, a Lebanese Islamist political party whose armed wing, the Fajr Forces, has been engaged in cross-border hostilities with Israel, told Human Rights Watch that no fighters from the group were killed in the strike, and denied any affiliation with the Emergency and Relief Corps of the Lebanese Succour Association.

Human Rights Watch interviewed six people from Habbarieh: the parents of three people killed, the owner of the house, a member of the emergency and rescue team who left the center shortly before the strike, a resident who was at the site shortly after the attack, and a local official. Human Rights Watch also spoke to the head of the Emergency and Relief Corps at the Lebanese Succour Association, a member of parliament representing the Islamic Group, and two people at the General Directorate of the Lebanese Civil Defense, including the head of the civil defense team that pulled the bodies out of the rubble.

Human Rights Watch also reviewed photographs of weapon remnants found at the site; photographs and videos of the site before and after the attack shared online by journalists, news agencies, and rescue workers; and footage shared directly with researchers. Human Rights Watch sent a letter with findings and questions to the Israeli military and the US State Department on April 19 but has not received a response as of time of publishing.

Footage of weapons remnants found at the site of the strike, and shared with Human Rights Watch, included a metal remnant marked “MPR 500,” confirming it was a 500-pound class general purpose bomb, made by Israeli weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems, and remnants of the strake and a tail-fin belonging to a JDAM guidance kit, produced by the US-based Boeing Company.

Two verified photographs, posted on the Emergency and Relief Corps Facebook page on March 28 and taken at the attack site, show remnants in the same location seen in the photographs sent directly to Human Rights Watch. The photographs were shared by a Habbarieh resident who was at the site shortly after the attack and by a journalist in Beirut who shared photographs of the same set of remnants displayed at the funeral service for the seven volunteers.

The seven people killed were all volunteers who had begun working with the center shortly after it opened its branch in Habbarieh in late 2023, their families, colleagues, and the head of the Emergency and Relief Corps said. Those killed were 18-year-old twin brothers Ahmad and Hussein al-Chaar, Abdul Rahman al-Chaar, Ahmad Hammoud, Mohammed Farouk Atwi, Abdullah Atwi, and Baraa Abou Qaiss; the oldest person of this group was 25.

The attack came shortly after 12:30 a.m., killing all seven workers at the center, said Samer Hamdan, the head of the civil defense team at the site. Photographs and videos taken by residents and journalists show the center razed to the ground and a destroyed ambulance parked nearby with distinguishable red markings on its back and sides.

Human Rights Watch found no evidence of a military target. The Israeli military’s admission in their Telegram post about targeting the center, given it was a relief center, indicates at a minimum their failure to take all feasible precautions to verify that the target was military and avoid loss of civilian life and damage to civilian objects, making the strike unlawful.

An Islamic Group official said that while some Islamic Group supporters are volunteers in the Lebanese Succour Association, they do not include any fighters from its armed wing, the Fajr Forces. Content posted on social media and reviewed by Human Rights Watch suggests that at least two of the people killed may have been supporters of the Islamic Group. In one case, the person posted four photographs to his Facebook page with the banner and imagery of the Islamic Group between 2016 and 2018. Another photograph posted on social media showed a third person holding an assault rifle while wearing camouflages fatigues. The person’s mother said that her son, like other men in the village, used rifles for hunting and was not affiliated with any armed group. Family members of the people killed, the Lebanese Succour Association, and the civil defense all said that the seven men were civilians and not affiliated with any armed group. A member of parliament representing the Islamic Group, which has a history of issuing public statements when its fighters are killed, told Human Rights Watch that none of its fighters were killed in the strike, and the group publicly denied any affiliation with the association.

“We turned every stone,” Hamdan said. “Everything we found were emergency and medical equipment and devices. Overalls, helmets, gauze, first aid kits. That’s it.”

In retaliation for the strike, Hezbollah said that it launched rockets at the northern Israeli town of Kiryat Shimona and the headquarters of the 769th  brigade later that morning. The attack by Hezbollah killed one civilian, according to media reports. Later that day, Israeli strikes killed nine people, including Hezbollah and Amal fighters and three other medical workers affiliated with the two groups. As of May 1, Israeli attacks in Lebanon since October 2023 have reportedly killed at least 73 civilians, according to an AFP tally, in addition to more than 300 fighters.

Rocket and missile strikes and other attacks into Israel by Hezbollah and armed Palestinian groups in Lebanon since October 2023 have reportedly killed at least 9 civilians and 11 soldiers. More than 92,000 people have been displaced from their homes in south Lebanon and at least 80,000 people have been displaced from northern Israel.

Under international humanitarian law, all parties to the conflict have a duty to distinguish between combatants and civilians and to target only combatants. In case of doubt whether a person is a civilian, that person must be considered a civilian. In the conduct of military operations, constant care must be taken to spare the civilian population, civilians, and civilian objects. All feasible precautions must be taken to avoid, and in any event to minimize, incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, and damage to civilian objects. Each party to the conflict must do everything feasible to verify that targets are military objectives. Anyone who commits serious violations of the laws of war with criminal intent—that is, intentionally or recklessly—may be prosecuted for war crimes. The attack that destroyed an emergency and relief center containing only civilians shows a significant failure to take adequate safeguards to ensure that targets were military objectives and to prevent civilian deaths, Human Rights Watch said.

In March, Human Rights Watch and Oxfam submitted a joint memorandum to the US State Department highlighting a wide range of Israeli violations of international humanitarian law and finding that its assurances to use US weapons legally are not credible.

“The uninterrupted and unconditional flow of arms despite Israel’s systematic violations of the laws of war and impunity for those abuses facilitate the continued unlawful killing of civilians, including aid workers.” Kaiss said. “Israel's conduct in Gaza and Lebanon violates US and international laws, and President Biden needs to stop the flow of weapons as a matter of urgency to avoid further atrocities.”