http://www.jpost.com/Editions/2001/05/30/News/News.27151.html
B'Tselem, Amnesty slam Israel
By David Brinn, Jerusalem Post, 05/30/2001
JERUSALEM (May 30) - Israel's policies in the intifada received a
tongue-lashing yesterday from two human rights watchdog groups,
Amnesty International and B'Tselem.
According to Amnesty's annual report for 2000 which outlines human
rights violations in 149 countries, more than 300 Palestinians have
been killed, most of them unlawfully, since the October uprising
began.
The intifada began, according to the report, when Israel Police "used
excessive force" on September 29 at the Aksa Mosque where five
Palestinians were killed and 200 injured during rioting. The incident
"sparked daily demonstrations and riots in Israel and the Occupied
Territories," the report, which was issued this morning, continued.
The majority of the 300 Palestinians killed and 10,000 injured since
October were demonstrators throwing stones, the report states, adding
that Israel security forces "used excessive lethal force, firing
rubber-coated metal bullets and live ammunition including
high-velocity bullets at demonstrators." Some Palestinians were
deliberately targeted and extrajudicially executed, the report claims.
The report also targeted the nature of Israeli arrests of Palestinians
on intifada-related charges, claiming that some of the 2,000 arrested
"reported that they were beaten or kicked immediately after arrest."
On the other side of the conflict, the report states that Palestinian
members of the tanzim carried out attacks on IDF soldiers and
civilians "in the Occupied Territories," and "Palestinian armed
opposition groups such as Islamic Jihad also placed bombs which killed
six Israeli civilians."
The report states that more than 360 people, including prisoners of
conscience, were arrested by the PA for political reasons during 2000,
and that "torture and ill-treatment by various Palestinian security
forces were widespread." The PA has failed to bring those responsible
for human rights abuses to justice, according to the report.
The Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem, in a report released
yesterday called 'Beatings and Abuse of Palestinians by Israeli
Security Forces during the Aksa Intifada,' cites 12 Palestinian
testimonies that describe the beatings and abuse of 24 Palestinians
that took place in recent months throughout the West Bank.
In response, the IDF Spokesman said, "The claim that the IDF is slack
regarding violence or maltreatment by its soldiers has no factual
base. In the appropriate cases, charges are brought before military
courts, and heavy penalties are handed down."
A Foreign Ministry spokesman said in response to the Amnesty
International report that in general the ministry's policy is not to
respond to the organization's various reports on Israel, because
Amnesty has proven itself unbalanced in the past. Rather, the
ministry's policy is to deal with individual cases that both
organizations bring to its attention.
(Herb Keinon contributed to this report.)
