B'Tselem is publishing a video clip documenting a soldier firing a rubber coated steel bullet, from extremely close range, at a cuffed and blindfolded Palestinian detainee. The shooting took place in the presence of a lieutenant colonel, who was holing the Palestinian's arm when the shot was fired.
The village of 'Arab a-Ramadin al-Janubi is a Separation Barrier enclave. Residents say the Civil Administration recently demanded they relocate, contradicting Israel's explicit commitment to the High Court.
The Jerusalem Municipality's gross neglect of East Jerusalem has led to the Dahiyat a-Salam neighborhood becoming a pirate garbage dump. The Municipality has not yet kept its promise to renovate the refuse site.
Four years after the Hague advisory opinion, the Separation Barrier has not been moved in any of the sections that were built and later nullified by the Israeli High Court of Justice.
The army recently severed the Palestinian village a-Nabi Samwil and its 220 residents from the rest of the West Bank, isolating it almost completely. The action is part of Israel's policy to separate Israeli and Palestinian traffic in the West Bank.
The demolition of houses as punishment is a grave breach of international humanitarian law. It is a clear case of collective punishment, which violates the principle that a person is not to be punished for the acts of another.
In late 2007, soldiers arrested Majed Jaradat after he threw stones at a demonstration. Jaradat told B'Tselem that soldiers beat and kicked him while he was detained, and a policeman beat him during a subsequent interrogation. He was then tried and held with adult prisoners for two months.
B'Tselem severely condemns the Palestinian terror attack today in the center of Jerusalem, in which three Israeli civilians were killed and dozens injured. Intentional killing of civilians is a grave breach of international humanitarian law and is considered a war crime that can never be justified, whatever the circumstances may be.
B'Tselem warns against a severe water shortage this summer in the West Bank and its effects on the economic conditions and health of tens of thousands of Palestinians. The chronic water shortage results in large part from Israel's discriminatory water policy.
B'Tselem and PCATI mark June 26, the UN International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, with a new video. The right of every person not to be subjected to ill-treatment or torture (physical or mental) is one of the few human rights that are considered absolute. Therefore, it is forbidden to balance it against other rights and values, or suspend or restrict the right, even in the context of the struggle against terrorism.
On the evening of Friday, 20 June 2008, three settlers assaulted Palestinian shepherds near the Susiya settlement in the Southern Hebron Hills. Nasser a-Nawaj'ah, a B'Tselem fieldworker, filmed the assault and the failure of soldiers on the scene to protect the shepherds. Although filming the incident was lawful, one of the soldiers hit a-Nawaj'ah and stole the video cassette.
On 10 June 2008, The Association for Civil Rights in Israel petitioned the High Court of Justice to order the army to cancel its prohibition on West Bank Palestinians' access to the northern beaches of the Dead Sea, which lie inside the West Bank.
Israel’s regime of apartheid and occupation is inextricably bound up in human rights violations. B’Tselem strives to end this regime, as that is the only way forward to a future in which human rights, democracy, liberty and equality are ensured to all people, both Palestinian and Israeli, living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
Since the Hamas attack on 7 October 2023, Israel has acted in a coordinated and deliberate manner to destroy Palestinian society in the Gaza Strip, committing genocide against its residents. In light of Israel’s actions in Gaza, the public statements made by Israeli decision-makers, and the international community’s failure to take effective action, there is a serious risk that the Israeli regime will expand the genocide to other areas under its control—first and foremost, the West Bank.
B’Tselem calls on the Israeli public and the international community to use every tool available under international law to bring an immediate end to Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people.