Collective Punishment: Israel's Strategy to Subdue Palestinian Resistance

In his July 2020 report to the UN Human Rights Council, Special Rapporteur S. Michael Lynk asserts that “Israel continues to rely upon collective punishment as a prominent instrument in its coercive toolbox of population control.”

From home demolitions to the Gaza blockade to the withholding of Palestinian bodies, Israel wields collective punishment tactics to subjugate and suppress the Palestinian population. In this policy lab, Al-Shabaka analysts Nada Awad and Issam Younis discuss the toll of this strategy on the Palestinian people and how it fits into Israel’s broader system of apartheid.

* Unfortunately, this YouTube recording cuts off the initial 5 minutes of the policy lab. To view the discussion in full, please click here. 

Nada Awad is HRC Advocacy Coordinator at the International Service for Human Rights in Geneva. She previously worked as an international advocacy officer at the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies and as an advocacy officer at Al-Quds University’s Community Action Center, where she focused on Israeli punitive policies targeting Palestinian Jerusalemites. She also worked as an archival researcher at the Institute for Palestine Studies in Beirut. Nada holds a master’s degree in International Relations from Sciences Po Paris.

Issam Younis is a long-time human rights advocate. He is the Commissioner General of The Palestinian Independent Commission for Human Rights (ICHR). He is the president of the Arab Network of National Human Rights Institutions (ANNHRI). He is also a member of the Palestinian Higher Education Council.

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