Col. Eyal Toledano - "legal advisor" behind Israhell's collective punishment

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Israel: Col. Eyal Toledano – Former IDF West Bank Legal Advisor Authorized Collective Punishment, Illegal Home Demolitions, and Forcible Displacement of Thousands
https://dawnmena.org/israel-col-eyal-toledano-former-idf-west-bank-legal-advisor-authorized-collective-punishment-illegal-home-demolitions-and-forcible-displacement-of-thousands/

Col. Eyal Toledano served as the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) West Bank Legal Advisor from July 4, 2016 to December 17, 2020. In that role, Toledano oversaw and was complicit in the commission of a wide range of human rights and international humanitarian law (IHL) violations, many of which constitute war crimes or crimes against humanity, in the West Bank within the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), including: hundreds of illegal home demolitions, some of which were punitive demolitions; the forcible displacement of thousands of Palestinians, including the planned displacement of the entire village of Khan al-Ahmar; a range of severe individual and mass restrictions on freedom of movement; applying Israeli law to occupied territory advancing illegal annexation; and maintaining the legal systems that form the infrastructure for the crimes of apartheid and persecution by Israel.

As West Bank Legal Advisor, also referred to within the IDF as Legal Advisor to the Region of Judea and Samaria, Toledano served as the de facto attorney general of Israel's military occupation of the West Bank and was responsible for planning and approving all IDF non-combat activities and policies, including ones that violate international human rights and humanitarian laws. After completing this role, Toledano was promoted, and he now serves as Deputy Military Advocate General.

As West Bank Legal Advisor, Toledano and his staff served as counsel to Israeli military authorities in dozens of punitive home demolitions against family members of alleged militants, which amounts to collective punishment in violation of customary IHL. He provided legal counsel to military officials in 618 additional home demolitions, displacing 2,115 Palestinians in the OPT, violating both the IHL prohibition on destruction of property and forced displacement. Toledano played a key role in planning, justifying, and defending the planned—but not yet executed—mass demolition and forcible transfer of the entire village of Khan al-Ahmar between 2016 and 2018, which would violate international humanitarian and human rights laws.

Toledano was also responsible for authorizing sweeping restrictions on movement within the West Bank as well as arbitrary travel bans denying over 10,000 Palestinians, including human rights defenders, permission to leave the OPT, violating their right to freedom of movement under international human rights law.

Further, Toledano abetted the Israeli government's unlawful annexation of occupied territory by incrementally applying Israeli civilian laws—legislated by the Israeli parliament—extraterritorially to the occupied West Bank, copying them into military orders, which have the force of law in the occupied territories. This legal process allows the Israeli government to claim that it is not directly applying its domestic legislation to the occupied territory, which is impermissible under international law, while achieving the same result.

Taken together, when carried out to maintain a system of oppression or domination, these and other crimes amount to the crime of apartheid under the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid and the Rome Statue of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which classifies it as a crime against humanity. When carried out with discriminatory intent, they also constitute the crime of persecution under the Rome Statute, also a crime against humanity.

In addition to his direct role in these abuses of human rights and international humanitarian laws, Toledano is also liable under the doctrine of command or superior responsibility. This doctrine makes him responsible for the conduct of his subordinates, and criminally responsible for their crimes because of his superior-subordinate relationship with the perpetrators, because he knew or had reason to know that these crimes had been committed or were about to be committed, and despite this knowledge, he willfully failed to prevent or punish these crimes. The doctrine of command responsibility is part of customary international law.

Personal and Professional Background
Toledano grew up in Netanya, a coastal city in central Israel roughly 30 minutes north of Tel Aviv. Today he lives in Kfar Yona, a small suburb nestled between Netanya and Tulkarm.

Toledano has served in the Israeli Military Advocate General (MAG) Corps since 1998. He holds a LL.B and LL.M from Tel Aviv University's Buchmann Faculty of Law, which he completed under the official support and financial sponsorship of the Israeli army.

Before serving as West Bank Legal Advisor, Toledano completed a number of legal positions for the IDF. He served as Legal Advisor to the Army Civilian Service Division, Legal Advisor to the Technology and Logistics Directorate, Head of the Security and Criminal Affairs Section under the Legal Advisor for Judea and Samaria, Head of the Legislation, Communications, and Resources Branch in the Legal Advice and Legislative Affairs Department, and Chief Military Prosecutor for Northern Command and the Navy.

The Role of West Bank Legal Advisor
The West Bank Legal Advisor is one of the highest ranking and most influential positions in the Military Advocate General's (MAG) Corps, a military legal body outside the normal chain of command whose decisions are binding on the rest of the IDF. The Advisor heads the West Bank Legal Advisor division in the MAG Corps, commanding a team of around 40 military lawyers. The Advisor is the primary legal authority for all of the IDF's non-combat operations in the West Bank and its military government in the OPT, called the Civil Administration. As the top legal authority, the legal advisor is charged with helping design, execute, and defend a number of activities ranging from Israel's discriminatory permit system for Palestinians, punitive and administrative home demolitions, drafting the laws that regulate Palestinian civilians' lives, authorizing what Palestinians can import to and export from the OPT, overseeing the Palestinian population registry, and acting as legal counsel on certain aspects of combat operations when they affect the Palestinian civilian population. The Advisor also is responsible for drafting new legislation for the OPT, to be issued as military orders.

Under the laws of belligerent occupation enshrined primarily in the Hague Regulations and Fourth Geneva Convention, the military commander becomes the acting sovereign in a military occupation and, within the restrictions of international law, assumes all powers of the state. As the head of the primary legal body at the disposal of the IDF's Central Command, the Israeli military commander overseeing the occupied West Bank, the West Bank Legal Advisor is the de facto attorney general of Israel's undemocratic military administration ruling over millions of Palestinians.

The role of West Bank Legal Advisor is also a stepping stone to more senior positions both within the military and in the Israeli public and private sectors. Previous West Bank Legal Advisors have gone on to be the Chief Military Advocate General, Chief IDF Censor, Deputy Attorney General, diplomats serving in the United States and United Nations, Vice Chairman of the Jewish National Fund, head of the Reform Movement in Israel, legal advisors to the Prime Minister's Office and Defense Ministry, as well as university lecturers and consultants in the private sector.

Unlawful Home Demolitions and Forced Displacement
The IDF carries out two types of home demolitions against Palestinian owned or Palestinian inhabited structures in the occupied West Bank: punitive home demolitions and administrative home demolitions.

Punitive Home Demolitions

Punitive home demolitions are acts of retribution, revenge, or deterrence carried out against the family members of Palestinians accused of violent attacks against Israelis. (As a matter of stated policy, Israel does not conduct punitive home demolitions against the families of Jewish Israelis accused of violent attacks against Palestinians.) By punishing people who have not been accused of any wrongdoing, punitive home demolitions constitute collective punishment, which when carried out in the context of military occupation, may amount to a war crime. According to data from the UN Office of the Coordinator of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), during Toledano's time as West Bank Legal Advisor, the IDF conducted 40 punitive home demolitions, which displaced 210 people.

The West Bank Legal Advisor's Office provides legal counsel and advice to Israeli military forces planning and carrying out punitive home demolitions. The first instance of appeal is directly to the West Bank Legal Advisor's office, which also helps defend those practices when they are challenged in Israel's High Court of Justice, an almost token procedure. According to data compiled by human rights group HaMoked and reviewed by DAWN, out of 36 punitive demolition and sealing orders that Palestinian homeowners challenged in court during Toledano's tenure, the court allowed all 36 to go forward in some form or another, and limited the scope of the punitive measures in only five cases. Of the 38 cases administratively appealed directly to Toledano's office, the West Bank Legal Advisor rejected all 38, limiting in scope only one.

In the very first days of Toledano's tenure as the West Bank Legal Advisor, he and his office participated in practices of collective punishment that would set the tone for the coming four years. On July 4, 2016, the day he assumed the position, the West Bank Legal Advisor's office received a letter from Israeli lawyers representing the Mahmara family, urgently appealing the punitive home demolition of the family's home in Yatta, a Palestinian city in the southern West Bank. The demolition was in retaliation for the shooting attack by two of the family members, Muhammad Ahmad Moussa Mahmara and his cousin, Khalid al-Muhamra, on June 8, 2016, killing four Israelis. On July 6, 2016, Toledano sent a letter back, rejecting the appeal and dismissing the fact that collective punishment is prohibited by the Fourth Geneva and Hague Conventions, which are the controlling international law for situations of military occupation.

At the time of this rejected appeal, the Israeli army had arrested and charged Muhammad and Khalid, but not yet convicted them. In the July 6 letter, the West Bank Legal Advisor argued that demolishing a home belonging to and inhabited by uninvolved family members was "proportionate" as an "extrajudicial, administrative punishment." Israel ultimately demolished the homes of both men's families, displacing 25 people, including 14 children.

Israel claims it has the authority to carry out punitive house demolitions under powers inherited from the British Mandate government's Defence (Emergency) Regulations introduced in 1945. It claims they are meant to deter against future attacks. However, the prohibition on collective punishment is considered to be a norm of customary international law, which means it cannot be trumped by domestic legislation. Numerous human rights organizations and international bodies condemn Israel's practice of punitive home demolition as likely constituting a war crime.

Israel stopped carrying out punitive home demolitions in 2005, toward the end of the Second Intifada, after an Israeli military report concluded that the practice did not create effective deterrence. It revived the practice nine years later, weeks before the start of the 2014 Gaza war, but it has not publicly provided evidence that it serves as a credible deterrent.

Israeli legal officials have concurred. "It's hard not to see home demolitions as collective punishment," former Israeli attorney general and Supreme Court Justice Menahem Mazuz said in an interview on December 30, 2021. "Innocent family members are harmed, even when there is no indication that they were involved or knew about [the crime]. And it's a house in which very often the whole hamula [clan] lives. I don't know of any other sphere in which punishment is inflicted not on those who perpetrated the offense."

Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention is unequivocal in its prohibition of collective punishment, stating, "No protected person may be punished for an offense he or she has not personally committed." The International Committee of the Red Cross also considers the prohibition of collective punishment customary international humanitarian law, meaning that the acceptance of this legal rule is so widespread that it applies even if a state does not recognize this rule under existing treaty law.

Toledano's direct role in approving, providing counsel for, and defending in court the practice of collective punishment in the form of home demolitions demonstrates his legal responsibility for serious violations of international humanitarian law, which could constitute a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions and a war crime. As noted, during Toledano's time as West Bank Legal Advisor, the IDF conducted 40 punitive home demolitions, which displaced 210 people.

As recently as July 2021, the United States has denounced Israel's practice of punitive home demolitions and called on the Israeli government to halt these actions. "As we stated numerous times, the home of an entire family should not be demolished for the actions of one individual," a U.S. Embassy spokesperson said following the punitive demolition of a home belonging to a Palestinian-American family.

Home Demolitions Based on the Discriminatory Permit Regime

Administrative, or planning-related home demolitions, are demolitions justified by claims that Palestinian homes are built without the required permits and are thus illegal. International human rights organizations, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the OPT, Human Rights Watch, B'Tselem, Al Haq, and others, have repeatedly cited the discriminatory and unlawful nature of Israel's practice of denying Palestinians building permits as a serious violation of human rights. Many have also cited this practice as an element of the crime of apartheid, reflecting Israel's intent to dominate Palestinians, segregate them into different geographic areas, and privilege Jewish Israelis.

According to Human Rights Watch, between 2000 and 2019, Israeli military authorities approved fewer than four percent of Palestinian applications for building permits in the areas of the West Bank in which they exercise that authority, excluding Jerusalem. By justifying home demolitions in the West Bank on the basis that Palestinians do not have the proper permits, and then refusing to provide these permits more than 95 percent of the time, the Israeli government subjects Palestinians to a purposefully discriminatory legal framework, resulting in sustained and persistent marginalization.

Between 2016 and 2018, the first two years of Toledano's term as West Bank Legal Advisor, the Israeli military government in the West Bank (Civil Administration), with Toledano's direct oversight and legal counsel, approved fewer than 1.5 percent of those applications, according to data released in response to a freedom of information request and then disclosed in a January 2020 Haaretz newspaper article. As a result, Palestinians effectively have two choices: build homes or additions to their homes without the appropriate building permits, which Israel then moves to demolish, or abandon their land.

The pressure to leave entire swaths of land in the West Bank due to the destruction of property, combined with Israel's discriminatory building permit regime, comprise a coercive environment which, according to Human Rights Watch, "has led thousands of Palestinians to leave their homes under conditions that amount to forcible transfer," a war crime and possibly a crime against humanity under the Rome Statute.

The office of the West Bank Legal Advisor plays an important role in this process as the legal body supervising the enforcement of Israeli military law. During his tenure, Toledano established a new "enforcement unit" specifically to deal with demolitions due to a lack of building permits. The unit provided legal counsel in demolition cases, from their initial authorization to any legal challenges, and according to its own annual reporting, developed more "effective" military legislation and regulations for demolishing Palestinian homes.

Toledano's tenure corresponds to a dramatic increase in the number of planning-related demolitions IDF forces carried out in the West Bank. Beginning in 2017, these demolitions increased during each year of Toledano's tenure, from 271 structures in 2017 to 646 structures in 2020. In total, during Toledano's tenure, from July 4, 2016 to December 17, 2020, Israeli authorities confiscated, demolished, or rendered unusable 1,974 Palestinian structures, including 618 residences. These demolitions resulted in the forcible displacement of 2,115 Palestinians, according to data from the UN's OCHA.

The extensive destruction of property can constitute a serious violation of international humanitarian law and a war crime, as detailed in a recently published brief from Diakonia International Humanitarian Law Centre. Article 53 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which primarily governs situations of military occupation, states, "Any destruction by the Occupying Power of real or personal property belonging individually or collectively to private persons, or to the State, or to other public authorities, or to social or cooperative organizations, is prohibited, except where such destruction is rendered absolutely necessary by military operations." Further, Article 8(2)(a)(iv) of the Rome Statute notes that the extensive destruction and appropriation of property is a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions and a war crime, "when not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly."

Toledano, as the West Bank Legal Advisor, is complicit in, and responsible for the acts which comprise these grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions and war crimes under the Rome Statute. According to the IDF MAG's annual reports, the West Bank Legal Advisor serves as legal counsel in cases where Palestinians legally challenge demolition orders. Toledano also played a central role in designing the policies and legal tools used to justify and carry out those demolition orders, in the MAG's own words, "more efficiently." For example, the 2020 annual report describes the role of the West Bank Legal Advisor as "working to advance and make more efficient enforcement tools with regards to illegal building [in the West Bank], and in particular amending legislation to improve the effectiveness of enforcement tools, changing policies regarding existing enforcement tools, and more."

In addition, in 2018 and 2020, Toledano drafted new laws, Military Order 1797 and an amendment to Military Order 1252, which allow the military to rapidly demolish or confiscate certain homes without providing their owners or inhabitants any legal recourse. According to the MAG's reporting, Toledano also assisted in legislating a domestic Israeli law that gave Israeli civilian courts jurisdiction over some administrative matters in the West Bank, including planning, and helped train civilian state attorneys to try those cases. An Israeli Justice Ministry official stated that the intent of the law was to remove cases from the jurisdiction of a court that is "overly concerned with international law and with protecting the rights of the 'occupied' population."

The Planned Destruction of Khan al-Ahmar

As West Bank Legal Advisor, Toledano oversaw and was responsible for planning the mass demolition of Khan al-Ahmar, a Palestinian village in the West Bank, in 2017. Toledano's office provided the legal guidance for this planned operation and defended its legality in court. In addition to destroying dozens of homes, this operation would have forcibly displaced the entire population of the village.

Khan al-Ahmar is a village populated by Palestinians who were expelled from the Negev region of Israel in 1948 and resettled in the Jerusalem Governorate of the West Bank, then under the control of Jordan. After Israel captured and occupied the West Bank in 1967, it included Khan al-Ahmar in the municipal boundaries of the illegal settlement of Ma'ale Adumim. The village is also one of the last remaining Palestinian enclaves in a strategic area referred to by Israel as E1, which if depopulated of its Palestinian residents would effectively cut off the northern and southern West Bank. The United States and others have warned such a move would preclude the creation of a contiguous Palestinian state.

As Israeli military officials began preparations to destroy the village and forcibly displace its residents in 2017, Toledano and his office served as legal counsel for the planned demolition and forcible transfer, according to the MAG Corps' annual report. In 2018, the United Nations, foreign governments, and local and international human rights groups warned that the plan would constitute a grave breach of international humanitarian law. Nonetheless, Toledano and his office helped defend the demolition and forcible transfer in Israel's High Court of Justice.

In late 2018, when it appeared that Israel was posed to move forward with the demolition, ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda issued a rare public statement, noting that she was closely monitoring Khan al-Ahmar, and that "extensive destruction of property without military necessity and population transfers in an occupied territory constitute war crimes under the Rome Statute." Following Bensouda's statement, the Israeli government suspended its plans to destroy Khan al-Ahmar.

Restrictions on Freedom of Movement

As the occupying power in the OPT, the Israeli military has broad authority to place restrictions on freedom of movement. In its 2019 annual report, the West Bank Legal Advisor stated that it rewrote operational regulations and military law concerning restrictions on movement, and in particular those that permit and guide the IDF to enclose Palestinian cities and regions of the West Bank. The Legal Advisor also serves as counsel for operational decisions to impose closures and restrictions on movement.

Closures and checkpoints

In July 2016, when Toledano first assumed the role of West Bank Legal Advisor, and at the same time he authorized the aforementioned punitive home demolitions in Yatta, he also helped defend a near-full military closure on the same city. Following a shooting attack carried out by two residents of Yatta, in which four Israelis were killed, the Israeli army surrounded and closed all entrances and exits to the city, home to 70,000 Palestinians.

Off and on for several weeks, the Israeli military maintained the blockade, opening only one of the 12 roads leading to the city and doing so on an arbitrary schedule. This blockade effectively shut down the city's economy, prevented students from taking exams, and put a great strain on the city's health system, all acts that violated the basic human rights of thousands and suggested unlawful acts of collective punishment exercised against tens of thousands of people. Nearly two months later, the blockade of the city was still in place. Toledano's office stopped responding to multiple letters from the Israeli human rights organization HaMoked, which represented Yatta and its mayor, demanding the IDF lift the closure. As a result, the mayor of Yatta was forced to file an appeal to the Israeli High Court of Justice, after which the IDF eased conditions in the city.

A full closure is only one type of restriction on movement suggesting collective punishment. According to the UN Coordinator of Humanitarian Affairs, in June 2020, at the end of Toledano's tenure as West Bank Legal Advisor, Israel had placed 593 checkpoints, roadblocks, barriers, and other restrictions on Palestinian movement in the West Bank.

International Travel Bans
The Israeli military also controls who may enter and exit the West Bank through its only other external border, with Jordan. Those restrictions, although at times imposed on entire swaths of the Palestinian population, are generally imposed on an individual basis and prevent Palestinians, including those who may have dual citizenship, from leaving the West Bank and traveling abroad.

In addition to serving as legal counsel to the Israeli military authorities both shaping and imposing these travel bans, Toledano also provided and served as legal counsel in thousands of administrative and legal appeals challenging the various restrictions on movement it places on Palestinians. The Israeli military has placed such travel bans on Palestinian activists, human rights defenders, political dissidents, academics, medical staff and those traveling for medical reasons, and other targeted individuals. (The MAG's annual reports provide rough numbers of legal appeals against restrictions on movement for which the West Bank Legal Advisor has provided counsel in the applicable year. According to these reports, in 2016 it handled approximately 500 appeals, 650 appeals in 2017, 890 appeals in 2018, and 650 appeals in 2019. Although the 2020 annual report did not give specific numbers, it did state that the West Bank Legal Advisor continued to handle such appeals.)

Although the travel bans are most often based on alleged "security" concerns, in many instances the Israeli military's decisions are arbitrary. The process is opaque, but the Israeli military government in the West Bank oversees all entry and exit from the territory—for Palestinians, foreign citizens, and even for Israeli citizens. Travel bans are sometimes issued based on specific—but secret—information provided by Israeli intelligence services yet they are frequently issued seemingly without a reasonable basis or credible review.

In a 2016 ruling appealing one such travel ban, the Israeli High Court of Justice took the rare step of reprimanding the military commander of the West Bank—and by extension the West Bank Legal Advisor—for making decisions on security-related travel bans without first reviewing the intelligence on which they were based. But even when there is evidence, there is almost never an opportunity for an individual to defend oneself or challenge the decision, because the evidence is often kept secret—even from lawyers representing the banned individual.

One of the more notable travel bans imposed during Toledano's tenure as West Bank Legal Advisor is the case of Amnesty International campaigner Laith Abu Zeyad. For years, Abu Zeyad had traveled freely from the West Bank. He studied in London, traveled to the United States via Jordan, and even held a long-term Israeli military permit that allowed him to enter Israel whenever he pleased. This changed after Abu Zeyad helped promote an Amnesty International report calling on companies to pull their businesses out of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank because such businesses contribute to, and benefit from, Israel's illegal settlement activities.

On October 26, 2019, Israeli military authorities prevented Abu Zeyad from leaving the West Bank to enter Jordan, informing him at the border that he had a travel ban based on "security" concerns. Despite numerous legal appeals, public campaigns, and demands to see the evidence against him, Abu Zeyad is still banned from traveling abroad for undisclosed reasons.

During Toledano's time as West Bank Legal Advisor, the Israeli military imposed travel bans on anywhere between 12,000 and 14,000 Palestinians, according to data obtained by HaMoked through a freedom of information request. According to this data, in nearly half of all travel bans in which the banned individual submitted a simple administrative "objection," the military lifted the ban, usually within the eight-week period stipulated by Israeli law, further demonstrating the arbitrariness of the policy.

Illegal Annexation
The annexation of occupied territory is unlawful under international law, violates the international prohibition on the acquisition of territory by force, and constitutes the international crime of aggression. It was specifically prohibited in relation to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by UN Security Council Resolution 242 in 1967.

One indication of annexation of occupied territory is the occupying power's application of its domestic law on the occupied territory. Because Israel itself does not claim sovereignty over the occupied territories, laws legislated by its parliament, the Knesset, generally lack jurisdiction in the occupied West Bank. "Nevertheless," as the website of the West Bank Legal Advisor explains, "over the years, a number of models were developed for directly or indirectly applying Israeli legislation in the area." Toledano's role in legislating Israeli law in the OPT has played a key role in Israel's illegal annexation.

The primary aim in doing so, the West Bank Legal Advisor's website continues, is to enable "residents [Israeli settlers of the West Bank] to live orderly lives, in which the law which applies to them is mostly similar to the laws which apply to residents of Israel." Such laws apply almost exclusively within the boundaries of Israeli settlements, and for the most part, relate to administrative matters and the administration of local governments—Israeli settlements.

One tactic Israel uses to apply Israeli law to the settlements, and other areas controlled by Israeli settlers in the OPT, is to copy domestic Israeli law into the Israeli military code which has the force of law in the West Bank. These laws and regulations include the structure and operation of local government, traffic laws, parking laws, fines for infractions, radio frequency and cellular licensing, the operation of Israeli-designated national parks and nature reserves, electricity, the provision of social services, assigning oversight authority for higher education institutions, and more.

In 2016, during Toledano's first year as West Bank Legal Advisor, his unit wrote in its annual report that, "Considering the civilian [Israeli settler] population growth and increasing demands to apply Israeli legislation to settlements in Area C, the unit expects to deal with that issue in the coming year." A year later, in its 2017 annual report, Toledano and his subordinates wrote that they had begun implementing those demands, stating that they "continued the [process] of applying norms from Israeli legislation through military orders." The use of this tactic increased in the following years, according to subsequent annual reports.

As the primary legal authority drafting and implementing laws in the West Bank through military orders to be signed by the military commander (the acting sovereign), Toledano was directly complicit in this process of incremental or "quiet" annexation, unlawfully applying Israeli law to the OPT. The law of military occupation, intended to be temporary in application, clearly did not envisage allowing for what is effectively a cut-and-paste of Israeli domestic law onto the occupied territories.

Apartheid and Persecution
The most serious crimes Toledano is complicit in stem from the combination of the crimes detailed above, alongside the context in which they were committed, which amount to apartheid and persecution. Under the Rome Statute, the crime of apartheid takes place when an inhuman or inhumane act is carried out in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over another, with the intention to maintain that system.

In his position as the IDF's West Bank Legal Advisor, Toledano worked to maintain and enforce Israel's system of oppression and domination over Palestinians, which he did through no small number of inhuman and inhumane acts. These acts, as described earlier in this report and detailed by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, include punitive home demolitions, discriminatory home demolitions, forcible transfer, and the denial of basic rights like severe restrictions on residence and movement.

Toledano also spearheaded other acts that denied or infringed upon Palestinians' basic rights, discriminatorily and with the intention of maintaining Israeli domination, such as free expression, freedom of opinion, and the right to political participation. In a recent article, Toledano himself describes how the West Bank Legal Advisor, at the time he held the position, developed legal tools that "were used to administratively shutter and seize equipment from radio stations and printing presses" by claiming that they were inciting terrorism. In October 2017 alone, Israeli military forces used such orders to raid, confiscate equipment from, and shut down at least eight TV channels and production companies in the West Bank without due process.

The crime of persecution, also a crime against humanity, contains many of the same elements as the crime of apartheid but requires that instead of being carried out to maintain a system of domination, the actions take place with "the intentional and severe deprivation of fundamental rights on racial, ethnic, and other grounds," as Human Rights Watch describes. Amnesty International writes that "severe restrictions on movement and residence, including the right to leave and to return to their country," violations Toledano was responsible for as detailed above, "go beyond what is justifiable under international law. Their sweeping application has targeted the Palestinian population in a discriminatory manner on the basis of their racialized identity as Palestinians."