On the Agenda

A new B’Tselem report released today, Playing the Security Card: Israeli Policy in Hebron as a Means to Effect Forcible Transfer of Local Palestinians, demonstrates how Israel has been using security excuses to implement a policy that has made life unbearable for the Palestinian residents of Hebron’s city center (the Old City), in an effort to drive them from their homes. This policy relies on the extreme regime of separation Israel has been implementing in the city for the past 25 years – ever since the massacre of Palestinians carried out by Baruch Goldstein – so as to enable a small number of settlers to live in the heart of a crowded Palestinian city. This policy violates the prohibition against forcible transfer, which constitutes a war crime.

On 4 August 2019, Israeli soldiers stopped B’Tselem field researcher Nasser Nawaj’ah at a military checkpoint near the Palestinian village of Khirbet Susiya, the South Hebron Hills, when they saw he had B’Tselem reports in his car. One of the soldiers at the checkpoint claimed that they had to obtain confirmation that the reports do not constitute incitement material. About 10 minutes later, after the soldiers consulted with their superiors, Nawaj’ah was allowed to go.

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.