http://www3.haaretz.co.il/eng/scripts/article.asp?mador=5&datee=4/12/01&id=116516
Human Rights Watch blasts Israel
By Joseph Algazy
Ha'aretz 04/12/2001
"Jews destroyed our house," three-year-old Rageh Jaber cried in his
young voice, after hearing his father Ata Jaber recount on the phone
how Jewish settlers attacked his east Hebron home on December 8, as
part of a series of reprisals for the killing of two settlers (Rina
Didovski and Eliyahu Ben-Ami) from Palestinian gunfire. In addition to
causing serious damage to Jaber's home and neighboring residences that
day, enraged settlers shot and badly wounded 13-year-old Mansour
Jaber.The story of the attacks against the Jaber residence and nearby
homes is included in an 82-page report, "Center of the Storm: A Case
Study of Human Rights Abuses in the Hebron District," released this
week by the American organization Human Rights Watch. The report is
based on investigations carried out by the organization's human rights
workers for five weeks, between November 2000 and February 2001. Human
Rights Watch workers interviewed dozens of victims of alleged abuses,
along with witnesses, international observers stationed in the Hebron
area, Israeli and Palestinian Authority officials, and settlers.
"Hebron is a microcosm of the devastating impact of the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict on civilians," says Hanny Megally,
executive director of Human Rights Watch's Middle East and North
Africa division. Megally adds: "These widespread human rights abuses
simply cannot be deferred to future negotiations."
The report calls on the international community to "urge the United
Nations Security Council to establish immediately a permanent
international presence in the West Bank and Gaza to monitor and report
publicly and regularly on the compliance by all parties with
international human rights and humanitarian law standards." The report
notes that Hebron, the largest Palestinian city on the West Bank which
has remained in large measure under direct Israel Defense Forces
control, is home to 120,000 Palestinians, along with a large
concentration of settlers (500 Jews live in the center of the city,
and another 7,000 dwell in outlying areas).
Since the eruption of the Al-Aqsa Intifada, Hebron has been a
flash-point of conflicts which pit Palestinians against settlers and
Israeli security forces. Like other parts of the West Bank and Gaza
Strip, Hebron plays host to human rights violations, and the trampling
of international law.
The report contends that a leading source of human rights abuse in
Hebron is the excessive use of lethal force by Israeli security forces
in clashes with Palestinian demonstrators, many of whom are unarmed
and pose no dire threat to the Israeli security personnel, or anybody
else. Many of the Palestinians who have been killed or hurt by IDF
fire in the vicinity of demonstrations were pedestrians - this fact
conveys a hint that some IDF soldiers have fired indiscriminately in
populated areas.
The report uses the term "unlawful killings" to describe
assassinations of Palestinians suspected of involvement in acts of
terror against IDF soldiers or Israeli civilians which are carried out
by Israeli security men. It documents cases in which Palestinians have
been shot and killed under dubious circumstances which warrant
investigation, and possibly the submission of criminal indictments.
The report's authors reject the IDF's contention that it bears no
obligation to investigate incidents in which such Palestinian terror
suspects have been killed because it is embroiled in a "state of armed
dispute."
Israel's systematic policy of imposing curfews and closures against
Palestinian areas constitutes a form of "collective punishment" which
is prohibited by international law and humanitarian standards, the
report contends. Drastic restriction Some 30,000 Palestinians who
live in Hebron's Israel-controlled "H2" region have been confined to
their homes by a near-permanent, round-the-clock, curfew. This drastic
restriction applies only to Palestinian residents; Israeli settlers in
the H2 area are allowed to move freely at all times. In some cases,
the closures and curfews make it easier for settlers to perpetrate
attacks against Palestinians, the report claims. Hadj Fahmi Abu-Turki,
a 46-year-old father of 10 who lives in Hirbet Al-Qass, complained
this week that "the curfew which has been imposed on our neighborhood,
close to the Beit Hagai settlement, has been in effect almost since
the start of the Intifada. Soldiers sometimes shoot as though they are
in training [exercises]; and all day and night, settlers curse and
throw rocks at us."
By and large, the some 21,000 pupils who live in the H2 region have
been unable to attend classes because their schools have been
shut-down by closures and curfews. Scores of Palestinian bread-winners
in this Hebron area have lost their jobs. Medical personnel are unable
to do their work; health care is delayed; ambulances are stopped en
route, dodging gunfire shot by Israeli security forces.
The Human Rights Watch report documents cases in which Israeli
security men abused and assaulted Palestinian taxi drivers and owners
of private vehicles who attempted to skirt around closures and
checkpoints by using alternative roads. Soldiers have beaten-up the
drivers, deflated the tires of their cars, or fired shots in their
general direction.
Describing attacks carried out by settlers against Palestinians in the
Hebron area, the report suggests that the IDF serves as a kind of
shield for the aggressive Jewish civilians. "It is clear that the
majority of physical attacks are initiated by Israeli settlers, and
that the IDF has consistently failed in its obligation to protect
Palestinian civilians from attacks by Israeli settlers. In effect,
settlers are using the protection provided by the IDF to attack
Palestinian civilians," the report claims. In most of the cases it has
monitored, the Human Rights Watch organization claims that "the IDF
has only intervened to protect the Israeli settlers from
counterattack."
Settlers have routinely attacked the Palestinian vegetable market in
Hebron's Old City, the report claims. The settlers damage produce in
the market, topple vendors' stalls, and also vandalize and attack a
large number of Palestinian homes in the Old City.
The report claims that settlers have accosted numerous
humanitarian-human rights workers, Palestinian journalists, and
international observers (such as members of the "Christian Peacemakers
Team").
The report's authors regret that since October Jewish settlers in the
Hebron area have been forced to live with gunfire shot by armed
Palestinians as "a matter of routine." Examples of such Palestinian
aggression noted in the report include the sniper-fire killing of 10
month old Shalhevet Pass, and the wounding of her father, Yitzhak
Pass. Fatah members are responsible for a share of the gunfire attacks
against settlers, the report says.
Though Jewish settlements, the report claims, violate international
law, attacks against unarmed settler civilians, including children,
are morally and legally reprehensible. In this section pertaining to
settler issues, and other parts of the report, the authors find that
IDF responses enacted ostensibly to protect Jewish civilians are often
excessive. The "heavy weaponry" operated by Israel the report says,
"increases the destructive potential of the IDF response, and must be
used with great care to prevent disproportionate harm to civilians."
The authors add: "On many occasions, it appears that IDF soldiers have
responded with widespread gunfire into civilian neighborhoods, hitting
dozens of homes at a time. The apparently untargeted nature of IDF
gunfire and its civilian toll raises serious concerns that the IDF is
firing indiscriminately, in violation of international humanitarian
law standards.
http://www.hrw.org/press/2001/04/hebron041101.htm
