On the Agenda

Route closures in West Bank villages have long since become a routine method of oppression Israel uses against West Bank residents, based on allegations of stone-throwing. With a single stroke, the military punishes all of the residents of the village and neighboring ones even though they did nothing. In June-July 2019 the military closed the entrances to two villages, Osarin and Deir Nizam, for weeks. There is no connection between stone-throwing by youths in a village, and harming thousands of people. It is an arbitrary abu¬¬se of power by the military.

A week after soldiers, Border Police officers and settlers harassed the Abu Shamsiyeh family, on 16 June 2019, ‘Imad Abu Shamsiyeh suffered a sunstroke. In the middle of the night, his wife called an ambulance for him but the Israeli military would not allow it into the neighborhood. After a lengthy delay, the EMT staff decided to evacuate Abu Shamsiyeh on foot, a task accomplished only after further argument with the soldiers. This case demonstrates contempt for the health of a patient in need of urgent medical care and clearly illustrates the extent to which Israel controls all aspects of Palestinians’ lives in Hebron. It shows how, for Palestinians, even the most commonplace tasks involve difficulties and uncertainty and, above all, no control over the situation.

Since 1 July 2017, Israel has banned family visits with 100 or so Hamas prisoners from Gaza it is holding in its own territory in defiance of international law. Four prisoners petitioned the HCJ against the ban in August 2017. In June 2019, the court rejected their petition, accepting the wrongful notion that human beings may be used as a means to an end – in this case, pressuring Hamas to return Israeli civilians and the remains of Israeli soldiers it is holding, and completely ignoring the true motivation for the ban, which is sheer revenge.

Isolating the Gaza Strip from the rest of the world has trapped its residents in a small, closed job market, with no prospects of development and no future. The economic there is at an all-time low, after 12 years under an Israeli-imposed blockade and 19 years that Israel has been working to cut Gaza off from the West Bank and has revoked Gaza residents’ permits to work in Israel. In 2018, unemployment in Gaza reached 52%. Israel could change this reality right now. Instead, it chooses to force Gaza residents to live in a state of hopelessness.

On Sun., 5 May 2019, two soldiers approached Palestinian cars parked near the closed gate the military had installed to keep cars from entering the Jaber neighborhood, Hebron. The soldiers demanded that the cars be moved, and one decided to strike the cars with the barrel of his gun. The soldiers threatened to damage the cars if their owners parked there again. Regardless of whether these actions were based on orders or they were an individual soldier’s initiative, the incident is part of the military’s abusive policy toward Palestinians in Hebron, which is why, again, no one will be held to account.

At the end of April 2019, Israel was holding 5,152 Palestinians defined as “security” prisoners. Most are in facilities within Israel’s sovereign territory, a fact the state exploits to harshly limit family visits, especially to prisoners from Gaza. For example, Israel has banned sibling visits to Gazan prisoners unless their parents are deceased or incapacitated. Even then, sibling visits are allowed only twice a year and subject to special permission. In testimonies to B’Tselem field researchers, residents of Gaza who have relatives imprisoned in Israel described the heavy emotional toll of this ban.

Blocking off access roads has long since become a routine method of oppression used by Israel against Palestinians in the West Bank. When allegations are made that Palestinian youths had thrown stones or Molotov cocktails at Israeli vehicles on local roads, the military blocks access roads to the young men’s village, punishing everyone living in and near their village. In March-April, the military blocked roads to four villages. The unlawful roadblocks severely disrupt residents’ lives, cause frustration and waste precious time. There is absolutely no moral or legal justification for inflicting this harm.

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.

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.

Israel permits live fire, from some distance, at non-dangerous protestors by the Gaza perimeter fence, an unlawful policy that has caused thousands of casualties. Yet the injury does not end there: Israel has rejected more than 80% of requests by wounded protestors to leave Gaza for treatment in the West Bank or in Israel. Israel is responsible for the injuries and for Gaza’s failing healthcare system after more than a decade of blockade. It follows that Israel is responsible for changing this reality.