Since the end of Israel’s devastating war on Gaza, the death toll from the Middle East conflict has dropped significantly but rights abuses against Palestinian civilians are still widespread, an Israeli rights group said on Monday.
During the period following Israel’s 22-day operation in the Gaza Strip, which ended on January 18 2009, the number of Palestinians and Israelis killed was “much lower” than in previous years, B’Tselem said in its annual report on human rights in the Palestinian territories.
The report covering the period from January 2009 to April 2010 said 83 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces, more than a third of whom were not engaged in hostilities, the group said.
That number compared with 456 Palestinian deaths in 2008, B’Tselem said. The figures for both years do not include the toll from the Gaza war.
In the same period, Palestinian militants killed three Israeli civilians, compared with 21 a year earlier, and four members of Israel’s security forces as opposed to 10 in 2008.
Despite widespread human rights violations during the war, the report noted that the situation had “improved in several important spheres”.
Israel has removed some restrictions on Palestinian movement in the West Bank, reducing the number of manned checkpoints to 44 by the end of February, down from 63 in 2008, it said.
But it said many other human rights violations were continuing unchecked, and pointed to Israel’s ongoing blockade of the Gaza Strip as a prime example.
“The almost total prohibition on the import of raw materials and on exports has led to the collapse of the economy and the closing of most of the factories in Gaza,” it said.
“Poverty and deprivation, which were widespread before the operation, have worsened still further.
“Absurdly, Israel’s decision to prevent imports and exports has encouraged the development of the tunnels economy between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, which is controlled by Hamas and increases its power.”
B’Tselem also denounced what it described as a culture of impunity within the Israeli security establishment.
“From the soldier at the checkpoint to the top echelon of the army and government, accountability for harming Palestinian civilians is the exception rather than the rule,” it said.
Jewish settlement on occupied land was also harming Palestinians by maintaining “a regime of separation and discrimination”, it said.
“The existence of the settlements violates not only the Palestinians’ property rights, but also many other rights, including the right to housing, to a livelihood, and to freedom of movement.
“The drastic changes Israel has made to the map of the West Bank also prevent any practical possibility for the Palestinians to realise their right to self-determination in an independent, viable Palestinian state,” it said.
B’Tselem was set up by a group of academics, lawyers, journalists and politicians in 1989 with the aim of documenting human rights violations in the occupied territories. – AFP