Updates

For five days, starting 17 March 2019 – the day a Palestinian killed a soldier and a settler and wounded two more soldiers – settlers assaulted Palestinians across the West Bank, beating them, throwing stones at cars and homes, vandalizing cars and defacing a mosque. Attacks of this sort happen after nearly every attack by a Palestinian, so it stands to reason that Israeli security forces could have taken preventative measures. However, as in the past, Israeli authorities did nothing, with settler violence fitting in with Israeli policy.

B’Tselem’s investigation into four killings since the beginning of March 2019 clearly shows the lethal fire was completely unjustified. These cases illustrate, once more, just how little value Israel’s security establishment places on the lives of Palestinians. None of the victims posed a threat to the lives of security personnel. Not one of these incidents should have ended in death. As B'Tselem has cautioned countless times in the past, these are not aberrations, or “bad apples”. These are incidents that occur as part of the routine actions of soldiers and police officers, pursuant to Israel’s dangerous, lethal open-fire policy.

B’Tselem’s investigation has found that in an incident reported by the media as an attempted stabbing at Huwarah on 3 April 2019, Muhammad ‘Abd al-Fatah had been throwing stones at Israeli cars driving along the road and was then shot by a settler who pulled over. As al-Fatah lay wounded on the ground, the settler, along with another settler who also pulled over, shot him again, killing him. Soldiers erased video footage of the incident.

Every day, Israel determines what the lives of Palestinians in the West Bank will look like – while they, themselves, are barred from taking part in decisions that shape their present and their future. Israel uses its power in a violent, arbitrary fashion, with blatant disregard for the safety, wellbeing and quality of life of the Palestinians who live under its control.

Tomorrow, Israel heads to its 15th national election since the occupation began. Israelis will cast a vote to decide their own fate – and the fate of millions of Palestinian subjects denied that same right. Yesterday, the New York Times published Democracy, Israeli Style, an op-ed written by B'Tselem Executive Director, Hagai El-Ad, about reality in the occupied territories, the denial of political rights, and Trump’s possibly forthcoming “deal of the century”. But the real deal is this one: Israel continuing to control and oppress the Palestinians, while facing no international price to pay.

Every day, Israel determines what the lives of Palestinians in the West Bank will look like – while they, themselves, are barred from taking part in decisions that shape their present and their future. Israel uses its power in a violent, arbitrary fashion, with blatant disregard for the safety, wellbeing and quality of life of the Palestinians who live under its control.

On 8 March 2019, at a demonstration in Beit Sira, Ramallah District, to protest the killing of two Palestinians, an ambulance found itself amidst the clashes. As it tried to drive away, an officer ordered the driver at gunpoint to shut off the engine and hand over the keys. The ambulance was detained for about 15 minutes. Interfering with the work of medical crews or causing them harm is prohibited. There were no grounds for threatening, detaining or endangering the EMTs. These actions by the security forces are but another example of their disregard for the lives of Palestinians, conduct always carried out with impunity.

“One of the soldiers assaulted my father and beat him in the face until he bled. I was shocked and furious. I couldn’t understand why he’d done it. Didn’t he know my father was ill and blind? What did my father do to deserve that? I have a lot of questions that I still need answered. It’s a nightmare I can’t ever forget, even though it’s very upsetting whenever I think about it.” Taken from the testimony of Mazen Muzher (15).

On Mon., 4 March 2019, at around 2:30 A.M., a Palestinian car hit a military jeep. The car also hit an officer, seriously injuring him, and a Border Police officer, who sustained mild injuries. Two of the three Palestinians in the car, Yusef ‘Anqawi and Amir Dar Daraj, were fatally shot and the third was arrested. Video footage of the incident reveals that the two men were shot only four and a half minutes after the collision. This time gap, the IDF Spokesperson’s refusal to explain it, and the confiscation of footage from a nearby security camera all raise grave concerns as to the circumstances in which the two men were killed.

On 19 March 2019, after school had let out, brothers Yazan (9) and Tayyem (7) ran back to school crying. They were followed by armed soldiers, who burst into the school and tried to arrest them for allegedly throwing stones. The teachers extricated Tayyem, but the soldiers arrested Yazan and took him to a nearby checkpoint. They released him only an hour later, after his mother had arrived. This is not the first time Israeli forces have entered a school or illegally detained children below the age of criminal liability in the West Bank.