You wouldn’t know it from the coverage in the UK business press, but the National Contact Point for the OECD (a government agency) has judged that G4S has severely restricted freedom of movement through checkpoints and prison services run by its Israeli companies and thus violated humans rights law. The NCP was responding to a complaint from Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights.

There are a few cases when a state may lawfully kill. The shooting dead of Israeli citizen Kheir Hamdan by Israeli police is not one of them says Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights in a forensic examination of this notorious execution of a young Palestinian.

Governments which have been happy to intervene in Libya and Iraq have left it to human rights organisations to speak out about the aims and effects of Operation Brother’s Keeper and the toll taken on Palestinians: three deaths, uncounted homes searched, over 280 arrests, harsher conditions imposed on prisoners, all free movement stopped in much of the West Bank. Only a fit, secretive, group of people could have kidnapped the Israeli boys. The IDF operation seems to have less and less to do with finding them.

Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights have used existing laws and agencies to trigger an investigation into the role of G4S in policing Palestinians. Many European bodies have ruled that Israeli rule breaches human rights laws. It needs outside bodies to compel them to act on their good intentions.

The killing of two Palestinian boys near Ofer prison (where most Palestinian prisoners are held) on Nakba day, May 15, has created unusual publicity: it was filmed and the video has been widely circulated. Perhaps a 2nd reason is that, following the failure of peace talks, more people are willing to note the violent injustice of IDF rule. Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights press the FCO to speak.