On the Agenda

On 27 Nov. 2019, three soldiers came three times to the home of the a-Tabib family in the village of ‘Izbat a-Tabib in Qalqiliya District to remove Palestinian flags the family had hung on the fence of their home. The family hung the flags up again every time. At around 6:30 P.M., the three soldiers returned while the family was sitting in the yard and took the flags down again.

The pages below are an exhumation, digging up the past. For each year since 1989, we brought an account of a single instance in which soldiers killed, injured or beat a Palestinian. The account of each incident presents the testimony we collected at the time and then describes how one or another of the state’s legal branches whitewashed the actual event. Lastly, we bring a testimony we recorded this year from a relative or from the victims themselves. Their personal stories tell of lives unalterably changed in an instant. They were never the same again.

Residents of the souther Hebron neighborhood of al-Harika have suffered incessant soldier and military-backed settler harassment ever since the settlement of Kiryat Arba was built next door in 1972. In five months this year, we documented five such attacks. These and other cases previously documented by B'Tselem illustrate how fragile, exposed and unpredictable life is in the neighborhood. The intolerable living conditions created by Israel’s policy drive Palestinians to abandon homes and businesses in the neighborhood.

On 3 Nov. 2019, before noon, soldiers detained ‘Abd a-Razeq Idris, 13, in Hebron, took him to al-Harika neighborhood and walked him, blindfolded, through the streets. They then drove him to a nearby military post, asked him about stone-throwers and sent him home alone. This case is no aberration, but part of the routine violence imposed on Palestinians by Israeli security forces and settlers as part of Israel’s policy in Hebron.

According to B'Tselem data, Israel is holding the bodies of more than 52 Palestinians who attacked Israelis or the military claims tried to, and is refusing to return them. Holding bodies as bargaining chips is a long-standing policy only made official in a January 2017 cabinet resolution. The High Court initially held it illegal but later overturned the ruling based on an unreasonable interpretation of the Defence Regulations. This contemptible extortionist practice causes the families immense suffering, as described in the following.

On 18 Oct. 2019, soldiers unlawfully dragged Qusai al-Ja’ar, 10, from his home while he was helping his father clear building debris, and held his parents back with gunfire and teargas. They drove the boy, handcuffed and blindfolded, to a military post in a settlement and sat him in the yard. When his father arrived, they asked the son about stone-throwing. The treatment of this child is part of the daily routine of control and oppression Israel imposes on all Palestinians in the West Bank as part of its occupation regime.

On 9 Sept. 2019, an extended HCJ panel held that the Defence Regulations grant the state the power to hold bodies for negotiation. Israel is currently holding 52 such bodies. President Esther Hayut relied on a circuitous interpretation of the Regulations while treating international law almost as a technicality. Yet again, the justices proved willing to sanction almost any violation of Palestinians’ human rights – thereby not only failing to discharge their duties, but playing a pivotal role in legitimizing the entire occupation.

The police harassment against residents of al-‘Esawiyah we reported in July continues, though it has abated somewhat after the school year began. Over the summer, B’Tselem documented ten cases of police brutality against neighborhood residents, three of which are presented here in detail. This police harassment is an inseparable part of Israeli policy throughout East Jerusalem, which seeks to perpetuate a demographic majority for Jews in the city.

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.

In June 2019, settlers vandalized Palestinian property in at least 10 West Bank villages, burning some 1,800 trees and acres of grain fields, uprooting some 700 seedlings and damaging at least 55 cars. This army-backed violence is routine, part of state policy aimed at reducing Palestinian farming and gradually transferring abandoned areas to settlers. As part of this policy, crimes go uninvestigated and criminals are unlikely to be punished. Settlers are well aware of this fact, as are Palestinians who remain defenseless.