Updates

On 29 June 2012, a B’Tselem volunteer documented an assault on a 9-year-old boy, ’Abd a-Rahman Burqan, by Border Police officers in Hebron. B’Tselem also took testimony about an attack on ‘Abd a-Rahman on 3 June 2012, which was not documented on video. In the first incident, a Border Police officer allegedly chased ‘Abd a-Rahman and, after catching him, stepped on his hand and kicked him, then released him. B’Tselem contacted the Department for the Investigation of Police (DIP) on 1 July 2012 about that incident. A few hours later, B’Tselem received video documentation of the second incident. After the media publicized the video, the Department for the Investigation of Police notified B’Tselem that it would begin investigating both incidents.

Testimony taken by B’Tselem indicates that during April 2012, soldiers arrested Muhammad a-Zir, age 13. According to the testimonies, the soldiers beat the boy during his first detention, during which he was interrogated without his parents present in contravention of the law regarding detention of youths. Following both subsequent detentions, the soldiers left him at night with his hands cuffed, somewhere unknown to him, and far away from his home. B’Tselem contacted the Military Police Investigations Unit (MPIU) demanding that it open an investigation into these incidents.

On 15 June 2012, the Haaretz newspaper reported that, following a demonstrator’s injury in Kafr Qadum after an Israeli soldier set a dog on him, the army had decided to stop using dogs to disperse demonstrations in the West Bank. The Kafr Qadum incident was documented by a B’Tselem volunteer, and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel contacted the Judea and Samaria Division Command demanding that soldiers be reminded that they are forbidden to use dogs to attack civilians in general and demonstrators in particular.

On the night of 27 March 2012, soldiers in civilian clothing entered Kafr Ramun near Ramallah. B’Tselem has learned that three brothers from the village, thinking they were being robbed, came outside armed with a club and two knives to defend their property and were shot by the soldiers. Uniformed soldiers who came to the scene during the incident, also shot two of the brothers, who were already wounded. One brother died of his wounds and the other two sustained injuries. B’Tselem demanded an investigation into this incident and was informed Today, 24 April 2012, that an investigation was ordered by the MAG corps

During the last year, B’Tselem has documented eight cases of Military dogs attacking and injuring citizens. The army’s use of dogs against civilians is improper and dangerous and could lead to severe and disproportionate injury to unarmed civilians. B’Tselem urges army commanders to immediately change the existing policy and prohibit the use of dogs to attack civilians, before any more people are injured.

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.

To mark International Women’s Day, B'Tselem is issuing a collection of videos filmed by women who volunteer in its camera project. The images provide the viewer with a unique look into these women's daily lives. The women in the project live in a reality in which human rights violations are a daily occurrence. It is a reality most of us prefer not to see, yet the documentation is crucial and also transformative. The women photographers say that the cameras have changed their lives. They provide a tool for personal, social, and popular expression and they make these women effective human rights advocates in a traditional society in which the men usually take center stage.

On 15 February, the Jerusalem District Attorney’s Office indicted a soldier and two young Israeli women, charging that they damaged property, and sprayed malicious graffiti against Palestinians, in a-Lubban a-Sharqiyah, a village in the Nablus District. The indictment also accuses the soldier of using a gun to threaten villagers who tried to stop his car. The three were arrested following B'Tselem’s publication of video footage filmed by a security camera belonging to a merchant in the village.

On 26 November 2011, a volunteer in B'Tselem’s camera project filmed a border policeman aim a loaded weapon at the photographer’s 13-year-old son. The family related that Border policemen also harassed the boys, who were playing across from their house and beat one of them. B'Tselem demanded that the authorities conduct an immediate investigation.