Amnesty report: Israel unlawfully killed and tortured Palestinians
Annual report claims Israel infringed upon rights of thousands of Palestinians in 2016, among them children; Palestinians, on the other hand, are accused of killing 16 Israelis and a foreign citizen.
An Amnesty International annual report, which was published on Wednesday, states that Israel unlawfully killed 110 Palestinians, including children in Israel and the West Bank in 2016. The report also claims that thousands of Palestinians were detained without trial by administrative orders.
Israel allegedly tortured Palestinian detainees and mistreated them, and those responsible for the serious infringement of rights got away with impunity, the report continues.
Furthermore, the report stated that Israel continued to promote illegal settlements in the West Bank while retroactively attempting to legalize them after they were built on private Palestinian land.
Conversely, the report did not spare its criticism from the Palestinian side, claiming that armed Palestinian groups in Gaza intermittently and indiscriminately fired rockets and mortars toward Israel, killing 16 Israelis and one foreign citizen.
The Palestinian government and the Hamas de facto government in Gaza did not seek to impose liability or punish those responsible for crimes committed by Palestinians and for executions of "collaborators" without trial.
Overall, the report covers 159 countries and claims that the principles of human dignity and equality between human beings have been targets for attack by political candidates, including Donald Trump, who won the presidential elections in the United States and entered the White House on January 20 of this year.
According to the human rights organization, Trump's "toxic" rhetoric has made the world a bleaker place.
War crimes in at least 23 countries during 2016
The world is facing a growing list of serious crises, including Syria, Yemen, Libya, Afghanistan, Central America, the Central African Republic, Burundi, Iraq, South Sudan and Sudan. According to the organization, in spite of this list, international indifference to war crimes has become normalized, while the UN Security Council remains paralyzed because of the rivalries between its permanent member countries.
Worse still is the fact that four out of five of the permanent member countries (France, Russia, Britain and the United States) actively support the forces responsible for human rights violations.
Globally, governments have rejected refugees and immigrants, often using them as scapegoats. The report has documented how at least 36 countries have violated international law by sending refugees back to countries where they would be faced with danger. Trump's executive orders are only the latest prominent example.
The report also documents the killing of peaceful human rights activists in 22 countries, who were targeted for challenging economic interests, protecting minorities and small communities or resisting attacks on women's rights or the rights of the gay community .
