-Caveat Lector-
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Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2002 18:47:24 +0000
From: ainews <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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Subject: Israel/OT/PA: Only justice can end human rights crisis,
say Amnesty International delegates
* News Release Issued by the International Secretariat of Amnesty
International *
5 February 2002
MDE 15/012/2002
23/02
Amnesty International delegates who have been visiting Israel and
the Occupied Territories said that only justice and a commitment
to uphold human rights for all can end a crisis which is
spiralling out of control.
"We saw both populations, Palestinians and Jews, living
in fear. Every Palestinian in the Occupied Territories is
affected in a cycle of repression which is bringing people to
despair. Israelis are living in constant fear of suicide bombs
and armed attacks which have deliberately targeted civilians,
killing and wounding people in streets, shops and bars. Trampling
on people's human rights cannot be justified under any
circumstances, not in the name of security and not in the name of
freedom," Amnesty International said.
The delegates, who included a military adviser, said that
the Israeli use of weapons that cause massive destruction of
property, laser-guided bombs dropped by F-16 aircraft and Apache
helicopter-launched Air to Ground Hellfire missiles, have made
Palestinians in towns constantly watch the sky in fear. Houses
and infrastructure have been shelled and demolished without
regard for the rules of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which not
only prohibits collective punishments but also the destruction of
property except when "absolutely necessary" for military
operations.
Delegates condemned the use of tank shells containing
flechettes in the Gaza Strip. "Each shell may contain up to 5,000
arrows the size of nails, each one capable of killing. "They are
entirely inappropriate for use in one of the most densely
populated areas in the world", said delegates.
"Areas of Palestinian homes which we had visited several
times over the past year were now razed to the ground for alleged
security reasons but apparently as collective punishment", said
delegates. "It is unacceptable that without warning or legality
tanks and bulldozers demolish the homes of hundreds of families,
including thousands of children", the organization said.
Such demolitions are particularly devastating in a
context in which up to 48% of the population are now out of work
and relying on UN handouts. They have become, together with
closures and checkpoints, part of a daily diet of harassment and
humiliation for Palestinians in the Occupied
Territories.
Amnesty International has frequently condemned house
demolitions and has also stated that the failure to investigate
unlawful killings was allowing frightened or reckless soldiers to
carry out such killings with impunity.
Now many Israeli soldiers, conscripts and reservists are
telling their government that they do not want to carry out such
violations of human rights, stating that rules of engagement and
orders from commanding officers have led to killings of
Palestinians when no lives were in danger.
"One soldier told us that rules of engagement in the town
where he was serving ordered a soldier to kill someone about to
light a Molotov cocktail even when the soldier was in a heavily
protected pillbox and in no danger," said delegates. More than
150 reservists have signed a statement saying that they will no
longer serve in the Occupied Territories "to expel, starve and
humiliate an entire people".
"The IDF, whose mission statement emphasises "the supreme
value of human life", is accepting or even ordering unpardonable
acts. In Artas village near Bethlehem eyewitnesses told us how on
29 January soldiers had left a wounded man, Ahmad Ilyas 'Aysh, in
mud and rain for more than an hour during the night while they
called for his brother to give himself up." Nobody was allowed to
come near to help him.
"Wilful killings, inhuman treatment and unjustified
demolitions of homes are grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva
Convention," said delegates.
During their visit to Jenin, which had been cut off from
the outside world for 27 days in December 2001 following suicide
bombings which killed more than 27 civilians in Israeli towns,
delegates visited victims of attacks by Israeli soldiers who had
randomly sprayed schools and residential areas with shells and
bullets. During the closures patients from surrounding villages
were unable to get to hospital in Jenin; at least two pregnant
women who were turned back lost their new-born babies. Even now,
barriers and the blocking of many roads to Palestinians means
that a journey of 20 kilometres can take three hours along
tortuous, unpaved roads. "Freedom of movement is a right which is
constantly violated for all Palestinians in Israel's Occupied
Territories," said delegates.
Delegates also condemned Palestinian armed attacks on
Israeli civilians. The delegation visited a West Bank settlement
to talk to a victim of a drive by shooting in August 2001,
Stephen Bloomberg. "His wife, a nurse, has been killed, he is
paralysed, one daughter is in a wheelchair," said the delegates.
"The deliberate targeting of civilians can never be justified,"
said Amnesty International. Amnesty International delegations,
including this one, have frequently visited leaders of
Palestinian armed groups to condemn the targeting of civilians
and urge an end to these abuses.
The Palestinian Authority should arrest all those who
have planned or carried out armed attacks. But delegates
expressed concern that those arrested were frequently not given
any access to lawyers or families and appeared to be held outside
any legal framework. "Justice for the victims of these groups can
only be achieved through respect for human rights, including the
right to fair trial," delegates commented.
Amnesty International repeats its call for the
international community to act and to send international
observers with a strong, transparent and public mandate to
monitor the respect of international humanitarian law and human
rights to the Occupied Territories.
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