Mine ban policy overview

Policy

The State of Israel has not acceded to the Mine Ban Treaty.

Israel did not make any statements on the Mine Ban Treaty in 2012 or the first half of 2013.

In November 2010, Israel reiterated its long-standing position that “regional circumstances prevailing in the Middle East prevent Israel from committing to a total ban on anti-personnel mines. Unfortunately, these regional conditions have not improved in recent years.”[1] Israel has said that “it is unable to disregard its specific military and security needs” and that “it cannot commit to a total ban on anti-personnel mines as they are a legitimate means for defending its borders against possible incursions such as terrorist attacks.”[2]

On 28 March 2011, Israel’s parliament (the Knesset) unanimously adopted the Mine Field Clearance Act. The law establishes a national mine action authority to manage the clearance of Israel’s “non-operational” minefields, but it does not refer to the Mine Ban Treaty or address the use, production, transfer, or stockpiling of antipersonnel mines.[3]

Israel did not attend any Mine Ban Treaty meetings in 2012 or the first half of 2013. It last attended a formal meeting of the Mine Ban Treaty in November–December 2004, when it participated as an observer in the First Review Conference in Nairobi.

On 3 December 2012, Israel abstained from voting on UN General Assembly (UNGA) Resolution 67/32 calling for universalization and full implementation of the Mine Ban Treaty, as it has done in previous years. It was one of only 19 nations to abstain.

Israel is party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) and its Amended Protocol II on landmines. It submitted its annual national report for Amended Protocol II on 1 July 2013, as required under Article 13. Israel is not party to CCW Protocol V on explosive remnants of war.

Production, transfer, and stockpiling

Israel has said it “ceased all production and imports of antipersonnel mines in the early 1980s.”[4] It has dismantled its antipersonnel mine production lines.[5]

Israel declared a moratorium on the transfer of all antipersonnel mines in 1994 that was extended for three-year periods in 1996, 1999, 2002, 2005, 2008, and 2011. The current moratorium is effective until July 2014. According to Israel, the moratorium was declared in recognition of the “grave humanitarian consequences” associated with antipersonnel mines and “the need, in this respect, for self imposed state restraint.”[6]

On 31 December 2007, the Defense Export Control Act entered into force in Israel. The act “criminalizes, inter alia, any violation of the export without an export license or contrary to its provisions. This Act serves as Israel’s statutory framework for the implementation of its obligations under the CCW regarding restrictions and prohibitions on transfer and the Moratorium on any sales of [antipersonnel mines].”[7]

The size and composition of Israel’s stockpile of antipersonnel mines remains unknown, but it includes both hand-laid and remotely-delivered mines.[8]

Use

The NGO Mine-Free Israel estimates that there are approximately one million operational and non-operational mines laid in minefields covering more than 197,000 dunams (197 km²) in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories.[9]

In August 2011, Bamachaneh, the journal of the Israel Defense Force (IDF), reported that the IDF laid antipersonnel mines in the Golan Heights along the border with Syria.[10] The mines were laid after hundreds of civilians entered Israeli territory on 15 May 2011 during the annual Palestinian commemoration of “Nakba Day,” apparently crossing through minefields uninjured.[11]

The ICBL denounced the mine-laying as “shocking” and “disgraceful.”[12] The president of the Mine Ban Treaty’s Tenth Meeting of States Parties issued a statement expressing concern.[13]

In 2012, no new use of antipersonnel mines by the IDF was reported, but Israel stated that “extended monitoring, fences and markings of the minefields” was undertaken by the IDF’s engineering corps.[14]