In annual report, Israeli rights group B’Tselem says military forces killed 68 Palestinians in Gaza last year, 11 more in West Bank. The annual report surveys the broad spectrum of issues regarding the Israeli authorities’ human rights record in the West Bank and Gaza Strip over the past year, the 44th year of the Israeli occupation. An interactive version of the report is available online and distributed through social media. The report documents a sharp increase in the number of uninvolved Palestinians killed by the Israeli security forces in the Gaza Strip in 2011. There was also an increase in the number of Israeli civilians killed by Palestinians, compared to 2010.
An annual report from the Gaza Strip, of whom 37 were confirmed as non-combatants. The 61-page B’Tselem report said that the 2010 Gaza total was 68 fatalities, among them 18 were not taking part in hostilities. In the West Bank and east Jerusalem, it said, Israelis killed 11 Palestinians in 2011, although it could not give a definitive breakdown of how many were engaged in hostilities.
A Palestinian activist is pushed back by Israeli soldiers during the weekly demonstration against the Wall in the occupied West Bank village of Al Ma’asara, Friday, March 23, 2012 (Photo: Activestills)
“Human rights violations are inherent in a military occupation, and the protracted nature of Israel’s occupation only exacerbates human rights violations,” B’Tselem quoted its executive director, Jessica Montell, as saying. “We’ll continue trying to decrease the number of human rights violations as much as possible, but it is clear that as long as the occupation exists the Palestinians will not be able to fully realize their rights.” Between January and December 2011, B’Tselem said, Palestinians killed 11 Israeli civilians, among them a couple and three of their children murdered in their West Bank settlement home. Eight of the deaths occurred in the West Bank, two in rocket attacks on southern Israel from the Gaza Strip and one from a bomb in Jerusalem. In 2010 five Israeli civilians, two foreign nationals and three members of the Israeli military forces were killed, the report added.
The report also noted that Hamas courts in Gaza sentenced eight people to death in 2011. Three of them were executed. The Palestinian Authority’s courts in the West Bank sentenced one person to death last year. The report also indicates a steady decrease in the number of underage Palestinians being held in Israeli detention facilities. In 2011 some 200 Palestinian minors were held in Israel on any given month, compared with a monthly average of 320 minors in 2008. According to B’Tselem’s data, 650 indictments were filed against Palestinian minors two years ago. Some 40% of them were charged with throwing stones at Israeli security forces, while others were charged with hurling Molotov cocktails and belonging to illegal organizations. The report further claimed that 39% of all construction starts authorized by the State last year were beyond the Green Line. Most construction starts were in east Jerusalem’s Israeli neighborhoods. The rights group said Israel has stepped up its efforts to expand existing Jewish neighborhoods in the eastern part of the capital.
Related:
B’tselem annual report (61 pages, in English)
