Channels

Photo: Amir Cohen
Amnesty official Irene Khan in Sderot
Photo: Amir Cohen
IDF checkpoint in territories (archive photo)
Photo: AP

Amnesty: Threefold increase in killings of Palestinians by IDF in 2006

Human rights group’s annual report slams Israel’s activity in the territories, says settlers, soldiers committed ‘serious human rights abuses’; report also says Jewish state committed war crimes during Second Lebanon War

Increased violence between Israelis and Palestinians resulted in a threefold increase in killings of Palestinians by Israeli forces in 2006, according to Amnesty International’s annual human rights report.

 

More than 650 Palestinians, including some 120 children, and 27 Israelis were killed last year, the report said.

 

The Amnesty report said Israel “continued to expand illegal settlements and to build a 700 kilometer fence/wall on Palestinian land in the Occupied Territories”.

 

“Military blockades and increased restrictions imposed by Israel on the movement of Palestinians and the confiscation by Israel of Palestinian custom duties caused a significant deterioration in living conditions for Palestinian inhabitants in the Occupied Territories,” according to the report.

 

The report further stated that Israeli soldiers and settlers committed “serious human rights abuses”, including unlawful killings against Palestinians, mostly with impunity.

 

“Investigations and prosecutions relating to such abuses were rare and usually only occurred when the abuses were exposed by human rights organizations and the media,” Amnesty said.

 

'Israel littered south Lebanon with cluster bombs'

As for last summer’s war in Lebanon against Hizbullah, the report said Israel committed “serious violations of international humanitarian law, including war crimes."

 

Israeli bombardments killed nearly 1,200 people and destroyed or damaged tens of thousands of homes and other civilian infrastructure, the report said.

 

Israel also “littered south Lebanon with around a million unexploded cluster bombs which continued to kill and maim civilians after the conflict,” the Amnesty report said.

 

“Israeli forces also appear to have carried out direct attacks on civilian infrastructure intended to inflict a form of collective punishment on Lebanon’s people, in order to induce them and the Lebanese government to turn against Hizbullah.” 

 


פרסום ראשון: 05.23.07, 13:29
 new comment
Warning:
This will delete your current comment