VARIOUS/FILE: Amnesty International reports Israeli soldiers act with virtual immunity and reckless violence in the occupied West Bank, killing dozens of Palestinians

Record ID: 398034

  • Title: VARIOUS/FILE: Amnesty International reports Israeli soldiers act with virtual immunity and reckless violence in the occupied West Bank, killing dozens of Palestinians
  • Date: 27th February 2014
  • Summary: BUDROS, WEST BANK (FILE-JANUARY 15, 2013) (REUTERS) PEOPLE GATHERING NEXT TO SAMIR AWAD'S HOUSE POSTER WITH PICTURE OF 17-YEAR-OLD BOY SAMIR AWAD
  • Embargoed: 14th March 2014 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: United Kingdom, West bank
  • City:
  • Country: Palestinian Territories
  • Topics: Crime,Conflict,International Relations,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA3QQRM2HZ3K83A57ENC7U3NUIO
  • Story Text: Israeli forces are using excessive, reckless violence in the occupied West Bank, killing dozens of Palestinians over the past three years in what might constitute a war crime, Amnesty International said on Thursday (February 27).
    In a report entitled "Trigger Happy", the human rights group accused Israel of allowing its soldiers to act with virtual impunity and urged an independent review of the deaths.
    "Unfortunately the main problem as I said is that the impunity that they enjoy, and the impunity is because there is a lack of proper investigations that meets international standards. What we have in Israel and the occupied territories is that the military investigates itself and this is not independent or impartial investigations," said researcher on Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Saleh Hijazi.
    The Israeli army said in a statement that the Amnesty International ignores 'the substantial increase in Palestinian violence initiated over the past year.'
    According to U.N. data, 45 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank between 2011-2013, including six children. Amnesty said it had documented the deaths of 25 civilians during this period, all but three of whom died last year.
    After a three year hiatus, Israelis and Palestinians resumed direct peace talks last July, which the Palestinians hope will give them an independent state on territory seized by Israel in the 1967 war, including the West Bank.
    Although their decades-old conflict has become a low-intensity confrontation, violence still flares regularly, with Palestinians accounting for the vast majority of casualties.
    The 87-page report focused only on violence in the West Bank, not the adjacent Gaza Strip. It highlighted a number of the deaths, including 16-year-old schoolboy Samir Awad who was shot three times, including in the back of the head, after staging a protest near the Israeli separation barrier that divides his village from its historical farmlands.
    Father of Samir Awad, Abu Ahmed Awad, said his son was not opposing any danger when Israeli army shot him dead.
    "My son and his colleagues, went into field to pick up flowers, they were close to the wall. There were soldiers, according to his colleagues, the soldiers were on the Palestinian side of the wall not on the Israeli side. The soldiers did not fire stun grenade and they did not warn the children, directly they fired a bullet, and it went through my son's leg. They did not want to arrest him, but they could arrest him. They started to fire toward him, one entered his head and one his stomach and passed toward his heart. The one entered his head from back to forehead," he said.
    "I am trying to forget, but I can't forget him. He is my son. The Israeli authority fire toward people, without thinking about lives of people," he added.
    Amnesty said that in none of the cases it reviewed did the Palestinians appear to be posing any imminent threat to life. "In some, there is evidence that they were victims of wilful killings, which would amount to war crimes," the group said.
    "We've collected, we spoke to many witnesses to the incident, we've also spoken to the family and other people in the village. But we've also collected other evidence including for example medical information. And this evidence, we tried of course to check with the Israeli authorities we never heard back from them, shows us that the killing or indicates that the killings was wilful, that was there was an intend of murder and this under international law in the occupied territories amongst to a war crime," Hijazi said.
    Besides the fatalities, at least 261 Palestinians, including 67 children, were seriously injured by live ammunition fired by Israeli forces in the West Bank over the past three years, Amnesty said, quoting U.N. data.
    More than 8,000 Palestinians were seriously injured by other means, including rubber-coated metal bullets, since January 2011, the report said.
    During this period, just one Israeli soldier was convicted of wrongfully causing the death of a Palestinian -- an unnamed staff sergeant who shot dead a Palestinian while he was trying to enter Israel illegally in search of a job.
    The staff sergeant received a one year prison sentence, with five months suspended, and was allowed to stay in the army, albeit at a lower rank, Amnesty said.
    Three other investigations over the past three years were closed without indictments, five were closed but their findings were not revealed and 11 are still open.
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