B'Tselem Report: Israel's Violations of Human Rights in Gaza and the West Bank

B’Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, has released its 2008 annual report regarding the human rights violations took place in Palestinian lands and Israel. (The report, unfortunately, was compiled before Operation Cast Lead started in Gaza on 27 December.)

Since 2000, Israeli security forces in the Occupied Territories have killed more than 2,200 Palestinians who were not taking part in the hostilities and have wounded thousands more....

At the beginning of the second intifada, however, the Judge Advocate General’s Office stopped automatically opening investigations into cases of death and injury of Palestinians who were not involved in the hostilities, other than in exceptional cases. Between 2000 and the end of 2008, only 287 Military Police investigations were opened into cases of firing in the Occupied Territories, including cases that did not result in death or injury. In addition, in 2002, the Knesset passed a law denying Palestinians the possibility of obtaining compensation in most cases in which they have suffered injury as a result of illegal acts by security forces. Thus, Israel has almost completely blocked the two principal ways to ensure accountability.

The report offers significant points regarding casualties caused by the Israeli security forces:

Throughout 2008, until 26 December, Israeli security forces killed 455 Palestinians, 87 of them minors. Of the total, 413 (more than 90 percent) were residents of the Gaza Strip; the other 42 (less than 10 percent) were residents of the West Bank....At least 175 of the Palestinians killed in 2008 (approximately 38 percent) did not take part in the hostilities.

The report evaluates the frequently use of ‘security’ discourse by the Israeli officials:

Israel justifies many of its actions in the Occupied Territories on grounds of security. Over the years, the army has demolished hundreds of houses "for imperative military needs", has held thousands of Palestinians in administrative detention for allegedly "endangering the security of the region", and has declared thousands of acres of land a "special security area" in which Palestinian entry is forbidden, claiming the measure is necessary to protect settlements.

And, despite its completion before the recent war, the report gives important information about "the siege on Gaza":

In 2008, Israel continued its closure on the Gaza Strip, placing extreme restrictions on the Strip’s foreign trade. The closure began in June 2007, following Hamas’s takeover of the area. At the time, Israel closed the crossings into Gaza and placed major restrictions on the entry of goods into it, including fuel, medical equipment, and replacement parts. Israel allowed in only goods it deemed “humanitarian,” such as food, sugar, cooking oil, rice, and salt. In November 2007, the government of Israel declared Gaza a “hostile entity” and intensified its siege policy.

In 2008, the tunnel economy between southern Gaza and Egyptian Rafah greatly expanded. Many goods of various kinds were brought into Gaza through the tunnels, with Hamas supervising the movement and collecting taxes from tunnel operators. In addition to consumption goods, Palestinians smuggled in weapons, including rockets.

Unemployment in the Gaza Strip continued to rise in 2008. In the second quarter of the year, it reached 50 percent. 79 percent of Gazan households live under the poverty line and 70 percent live in deep poverty. 80 percent of the water supplied to Gazans this year did not meet the drinking-water standard of the World Health Organization.

The report assesses the restrictions on movement in West Bank:

2008 saw a rise in the number of flying checkpoints, which the army set up between permanent checkpoints. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), flying checkpoints averaged at 89 per week from the end of April to September 2008, compared to an average of 66 a week from September 2007 to the end of April 2008.

Finally, the report gives information about the Palestinians held in administrative detention:

In January 2009, the Israeli Prison Service informed B'Tselem that out of 548 administrative detainees being held by the army, 42 have been in prison for more than two years.

The Latest on Israel-Gaza-Palestine (7 February): Edging to a Settlement?

Latest Post: Israel’s Violations of Human Rights in Gaza and the West Bank
Latest Post: Dead is Dead - Propaganda and the Jabaliya Mass Killing in Gaza

7:20 p.m. Desperate Words in a Desperate Position. Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas may be pushing hard for a new arrangement with Tel Aviv, but present/former West Bank Prime Minister Salam Fayyad sees no hope:

I do not know of a single Israeli politician from any party who I would expect to offer a reasonable solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. All of them want a partial solution, or they aim to improve the face and the conditions of the occupation while the settlements continue.

Actually Abbas, with Israel holding Palestinian Authority aid and payments to Gaza hostage, is sounding desperate as well:

The Palestinian people suffered from the most ruthless and barbaric onslaught for three weeks. We want aid shipments to speedily reach the Palestinian people who are in dire need. So far, the shipments have met just 20 percent of the actual need.

6:30 p.m. It Had to Happen. Egypt is alleging that the $11 million confiscated from Hamas delegates, seized as they returned to Gaza from the Cairo talks, was provided by Tehran. It is "only a small portion of the large amounts of money Iran has funneled to Hamas over the last week".

No evidence was provided for the claim.



1:15 p.m. There are reports, from Hamas sources and witnesses, that Hamas military leader Mahmoud az-Zahar is part of the delegation en route to Egypt. If true, this would point to the possibility of a critical point in the talks; it is the first time that az-Zahar has been seen in public since the Israeli invasion of Gaza and the attempt on his life by Israeli forces.

11:20 a.m. Ali Yenidunya has posted separately on the report of the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem on Israel's human rights violations in Gaza and the West Bank.

10 a.m. Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas met Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday and will meet other Turkish officials today. The statements on the talks was anodyne: "The latest efforts to secure unity among Palestinian groups were reviewed thoroughly."

9:30 a.m. We've posted separately on what, in our view, is a deplorable attempt to play down civilian deaths from Israeli fire. Israel did not directly hit a school/shelter; it just hit the civilians killed outside it.

Morning Update (9 a.m. GMT; 11 a.m. Israel/Palestine): We ended last evening on a pessimistic note about any Israel-Gaza settlement but there are a couple of interesting, more optimistic twists this morning.

Some Israeli officials are putting out the confirmation that Hamas is not responsible for the recent firings of rockets into southern Israel; instead, the launches are being carried out by Islamic Jihad, Popular Resistance Committees, and, yes, Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah.

We already reported this. The significance is that Israeli officials will give up the public, inaccurate line blaming Hamas. This opens up some space for continuing discussions.

Which, in turn, points to the report in Israeli media that Hamas officials are returning to Cairo for talks on Sunday. A spokesman told YNet News, "The issues still being debated are fundamental but small, and...the organization would strive to prevent a relapse into fighting."

CNN-Turk also reports that Turkey is holding talks in Damascus with Hamas officials on a prisoner swap releasing the kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

Dead is Dead: The Mass Killing in Jabaliya in Gaza

I'm highlighting this story from The Washington Post because I fear it will quickly become a front-line propaganda piece to gloss over the civilian deaths in the Gaza conflict.

The Post headlines Geoff Witte's piece "U.N. Says School in Gaza Where 43 Died Wasn't Hit by Israeli Fire". Wow --- does that mean the 43 died at the hands of others, say, Hamas or a mystery force? Was the attack a fantasy? Let's read:

The United Nations said this week that Israeli mortar fire that killed at least 43 people in Gaza's Jabaliya refugee camp on Jan. 6 had landed just outside a U.N.-run school housing refugees from the fighting but did not hit the school itself.

OK, so the Israeli shells didn't kill anyone inside the shelter. They just killed people trying to get to the shelter because 1) they had told by Israel in some cases to evacuate their homes 2) their homes were getting hit by Israeli fire 3) they were panicked.

No one claimed, at least on this website, that the Israeli military deliberately targeted the school. Instead, we said that the deaths occurred because Israel was firing artillery in a built-up civilian area and that Israel might have been using a new type of mortar which was not as precise as advertised.

Indeed, this latest twist actually exposes the desperate Israeli attempt to cover-up the killing. Remember, Israeli spokesmen claimed that they were firing at Hamas fighters who were inside the school. Now, they are saying, no, no, we didn't ever fire at the shelter. The story changes depending on which straw "information" officers think they can grasp.

So Israel didn't hit the school, deliberately or accidentally, in this case. It did hit other schools, hospitals, large family houses, and tower blocks in its attacks. It did kill hundreds of civilians in this operation. It did so, in some cases, with weapons which are banned under international law. And, in almost every case, it has tried to escape responsibility for its actions.

Dead is dead. It doesn't matter one jot if that death occurred inside a building crammed with civilians or in a street crammed with civilians trying to get into that building, fleeing from attack, or just running about madly.

The Latest on Israel-Gaza-Palestine (6 February)

Latest Post: Hamas Strengthens Positions, Overtakes Fatah in Palestine

9:50 p.m. Israel has fired several missiles into southern Gaza near Rafah.

9:45 p.m. Hamas official Osama al-Muzaini says there has been no progress in talks with Israel over the release of kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. Hamas has demanded the freeing of 1400 Palestinian inmates, including 450 long-term prisoners, for Shalid, but Israel has agreed to only 71 of the 450.



4:15 p.m. Hamas political director Khaled Meshaal has restated the organisation's position on an Israel-Gaza settlement: ""We will not accept a truce unless it was in return for lifting the siege, opening the border crossings and acceleration of the reconstruction of Gaza."

Translation: unless Israel makes unexpected concessions via Amos Gilad in Cairo today, the Hamas delegation returning to Cairo on Saturday will reject any proposed deal. Whether that is effectively the end of the Cairo-based negotiations, or whether they resume after the Israeli elections on Tuesday, remains to be seen.

3 p.m. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency has halted operations after the second seizure of its supplies by Hamas this week.

2:15 p.m. Egypt continues to ratchet up pressure on Hamas and Gaza at the border. The Jordanian Secretary of the Nurses Union, Salman Al-Masa’id, has been arrested and held without charge. Al-Masa'id was part of a Jordanian delegation helping with medical care in Gaza; his "crime" was to remain when the rest of the delegation left earlier this week.

12:30 p.m. An extraordinary development over Israel's "permission" for the Palestinian Authority to bring $43 million into Gaza to pay its employees so they will not show up for their jobs, thus hindering Hamas. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has hailed Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert as "courageous" for allowing the movement of money.

Remember that $43 million is only part of $60 million the PA wished to transfer, that the PA is supposedly the Palestinian faction being backed by Israel and the US to take over in Gaza, and that Israel has made no move to support the PA's announcement of $600 million in reconstruction aid for Gaza. Despite this, Olmert faced opposition from both Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who argued the money would find its way to Hamas.

11:20 a.m. A prosecutor's office in Ankara has launched an investigation as to whether Israel's invasion of Gaza involves "genocide, torture and crimes against humanity". The enquiry was started after a complaint by an Islamic human rights group naming Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, and Defense Minister Ehud Barak.

9 a.m. Diplomatic Development to Watch. A day after a Hamas delegation left Egypt without agreement on proposals for an Israel-Gaza settlement, the chief Israeli negotiator, Amos Gilad, is in Cairo.

7:45 a.m. Two rockets launched from Gaza have hit southern Israel.

7:40 a.m. Irony of the Day. The Israeli blockade of Gaza, supposedly to stem violent attacks, has halted a United Nations programme promoting non-violence amongst Gazan youth. The programme cannot get the paper it needs for leaflets.

UN official John Ging said, "I'm being obstructed in printing out the human rights curriculum that we're all so proud of having developed here and that is more important now than ever before to get on with the teaching of the responsibilities that go with human rights and to focus on making sure that these kids grow up with the right values."

7:30 a.m. A poll of almost 1200 Palestinians increased a sharp rise in support for Hamas and a decline in support for Fatah and the Palestinian Authority after the Gaza conflict. We've posted a summary in a separate entry.

Morning Update (6:45 a.m. GMT; 8:45 a.m. Israel/Palestine): Israel has released 10 activists and journalists who were aboard a Lebanese ship intercepted yesterday as it tried to deliver aid to Gaza. The whereabouts of others amongst the 18 on the ship is still unknown. An Al Jazeera journalist says, "[The Israelis] blinded our eyes, bounded our hands, kept us in uncomfortable conditions for one hour ... they also told us not to communicate with each other in Arabic."

Gaza Effects: Hamas Strengthens Position, Overtakes Fatah in Palestine

So how did Israel's invasion of Gaza reshape the political battle between Hamas and Fatah? Have a look at a revealing poll from the Jerusalem Media and Communication Center.

A random sample of almost 1200 Palestinians, carried out between 29 and 31 January, has Hamas in the lead for the first time against Fatah across Palestine. Almost 29 percent said that, if legislative elections were held today, they would vote for Hamas vs. almost 28 percent for Fatah. Last April, Fatah had 34 percent support, Hamas only 19. Trust in Hamas has risen, albeit from only 17 percent to 28 percent, while trust in Fatah has declined from 31 to 26 percent. Similarly, trust in Hamas leader Ismail Haniya while trust in Fatah/Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas fell.



More than 53 percent of Palestinians on the West Bank and more than 35 percent in Gaza believe Hamas won the war against Israel. The percentage of those who believe rocket attacks help achieve Palestinian goals rose from 39 to 50 percent. Support for military operations and bombings against Israeli civilians also rose.

Those countries and organisations who supported Hamas and criticised Israel during the Gaza war, or those who were seen as helping Gazans, were most favoured by Palestinians. Turkey was seen positively by almost 90 percent, followed by Venuzuela
(80.6%), the International Committee of the Red Cross (79.8%); the United Nations relief agency (78.6%), Qatar (68.3%), Hezbollah (66.9%), the Muslim Brotherhood Movement (57.6%), and Iran (55.9%).

In contrast, Egypt was viewed positively by 35 percent of Palestinians. The United States had a favourable rating of less than 3 percent.