Dear Airbnb,

Listing accommodation in illegal Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories is facilitating a war crime.

The Fourth Geneva Convention states that "The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies." Since 1967 successive Israeli government and extremist settler organisations have flouted this convention and ignored repeated United Nations resolutions by building settlements throughout the Occupied Palestinians Territories on stolen Palestinian land.

Such activity is not only a war crime under international law but causes great hardship to the indigenous Palestinian community, whose lands are confiscated and water stolen for the settlers' sake. Moreover, because the settlers live under a different legal regime than the Palestinians and because Israeli authorities tend to turn a blind eye toward the crimes of the settlers, Palestinians are often subjected to violent attacks by the settlers including the vandalism of olive groves, attacks on property and even violence against Palestinian families living in proximity to the settlers. Last July the Dawabsheh family in the West Bank village of Duma was attacked by a group of settlers who burned to death an 18 month old toddler and his parents, leaving a badly burned 4 year old as the only survivor of the attack.

By allowing Israeli settlers living in the Occupied Territories to list their properties on your website, Airbnb is abetting and profiting from the violent dispossession of the Palestinian people and abetting a war crime. To add insult to injury you are also allowing the settlers to describe their properties as "in Israel", despite the fact that not a single country apart from Israel recognises the Occupied Territories as part of Israel.

Accordingly, I am petitioning you to cease allowing settlers living in illegal settlements from listing their properties on Airbnb.

Respectfully,

Adel Yousif