Human Rights Watch Condemns Israel
The U.S.-based body has released an 82-page report on human rights abuses in the West Bank city of Al-Khalil. The report is based on investigations carried out by the organization's human rights representatives between November 2000 and February 2001. Human Rights Watch workers interviewed dozens of victims of abuse, along with witnesses, international observers stationed in Al-Khalil, Israeli and Palestinian Authority officials, and settlers.
"Hebron (Al-Khalil) is a microcosm of the devastating impact of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on civilians," said Hanny Megally, a local director of the organization.
The report calls on the international community to "urge the United Nations Security Council to establish a permanent international presence in the West Bank and Gaza to monitor and report publicly and regularly on the compliance of all parties with international human rights and humanitarian law standards." The report notes that the largest Palestinian city in the West Bank, which has remained in large measure under direct Israel Defense Forces control, is home to 120,000 Palestinians, along with a large concentration of settlers -- 500 Jews live in the center of the city and another 7,000 dwell in outlying areas.
Since the eruption of the Al-Aqsa Intifada, Al-Khalil has been a flash point of conflicts which pit Palestinians against settlers and Israeli security forces.
The report contends that one of the most grievous human rights violations taking place in Al-Khalil is the excessive use of lethal force by Israeli security forces in clashes with Palestinian demonstrators, many of whom are unarmed, posing no serious threat to Israeli security personnel, or anybody else. Many of the Palestinians who have been killed or hurt by the Israeli defense forces were pedestrians. This is evidence of the fact that some Israeli forces have opened fire in populated areas.
The report uses the term "unlawful killings" to describe assassinations of Palestinians suspected of involvement in attacks against Israeli forces.
The report documents cases in which Palestinians have been shot and killed under dubious circumstances, warranting investigation and possibly criminal indictments.
The report then criticizes Israel's "systematic policy of imposing curfews and closures on Palestinian areas," saying that the act is prohibited by international law and humanitarian standards.
According to the report, thousands of students have been prevented from attending classes and tens of thousands of Al-Khalil citizens have been imprisoned in their homes.
It also adds that settlers, with the support of Israeli forces, have been attacking Palestinians, and "routinely attack Palestinian vegetable markets" in the city of Al-Khalil.
The report however, did not elaborate on other Israeli atrocities such as use of toxic and chemical weapons against the Palestinians, or torturing the oppressed people of Palestine.
Eight Palestinians were wounded overnight by Israeli tank-fire aimed at Palestinian neighborhoods, Palestinian police said in Al-Khalil Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Israel was condemned at the UN Human Rights Commission on Wednesday on three counts for its policy and military operations in the Palestinian territories, its settlement activities and the occupation of the Golan Heights.
An overwhelming majority of the 53-member UN forum backed an EU-sponsored resolution condemning Israel for its settlement policy.
Only the United States rejected the resolution, which was approved by 50 of the commission's members. Costa Rica abstained from voting and one country was absent.
Sweden's Ambassador to the UN, Johan Molander, presenting the resolution on behalf of the European Union, expressed "grave concern" at both plans by Israel for new settlements and the expansion of existing ones.
"Settlements are both illegal under International Law and constitute a major obstacle to peace," he told the UN commission.
The EU was also worried about the violence relating to the presence of Jewish settlements in the Palestinian territories, Molander added.
Israel was also criticized for its military operations and measures of repression in the Palestinian territories in a general resolution presented to the UN Human Rights Commission by Algeria on behalf of Arab and nonaligned countries.
In the meantime, a member of Lebanese Pious Resistance, Adib Haider, in an interview commented on the outcomes of Monday's Israeli air raid on a Syrian radar base in Southern Lebanon, which left three dead and six others wounded.
Here is parts of the interview carried by Iranian state radio:
Q. How do you justify the latest attack of the Zionist regime to the Syrian radar base in Southern Lebanon?
A. Zionists had repeatedly threatened Hizbollah before the attack and this air raid aimed to stop Syria of supporting Hizbollah activities in the Lebanon-Palestine border.
Military presence of Syria in Lebanon does not aim to support Hizbollah, but aims to mediate between the warring sides inside Lebanon, during its civil war. Presence of Syria convinced Islamic resistance to defend its country and it led to victory of Hizbollah in forcing out the Israeli forces from Southern Lebanon. This put the Israelis in a sensitive situation. The Zionist regime whenever faces a political problem inside the occupied territories tries to distract world opinion to an outside issue.
Thus, the Hizbollah attack to an Israeli tank in Shebaa Farms, which led to death of an Israeli soldier, was a huge blow to the Zionist regime. Israel, since it could not respond to Hizbollah, sent its warning via bombing Syrian radar base. In fact the raid was an attempt to stop Hizbollah of further activities.
According to Haider, Israeli regime is moving in two lines, "First, to abet some of its Lebanese mercenaries against the military presence of Syria in Lebanon. And second, with its latest air raid, to send messages for both Syria and those who want to put an end to the presence of Syria in Lebanon.
Israel has told its mercenaries in Lebanon that it would support them by taking such stances against Syria and at the same time has told Syria that either it should take its forces out of Lebanon or secure its northern borders with the Zionist regime.
On Wednesday, violence flared in the Palestinian territories Wednesday with mortars shells fired on Israeli targets in the Gaza Strip and Israeli tanks bulldozing Palestinian security posts, shortly after the army ended its 24-hour occupation of self-rule areas following harsh U.S. criticism.
The U.S. rebuke was the harshest against Israel since the outbreak of the deadly regional violence almost seven months ago, although officials here sought to play down its significance, saying it was not a true test of their longstanding alliance.
Hardline Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had to calm angry members of his government who were up in arms over being cut out of the decisions to seize land in the Gaza Strip Monday and to withdraw the next day following harsh words from the U.S.
Sharon convened a meeting of his security cabinet in which several cabinet members were expected to call him to task, public radio reported.
Meanwhile, in a strike that could provoke further tit-for-tat action, the army said six mortar shells were fired in the north and south of the Gaza Strip without claiming any victims or causing damage.
Israeli Army tanks and bulldozers rolled into the southern Gaza Strip where they razed a Palestinian security post near the Sufa Border crossing with Israel, a Palestinian security official said.
There was an exchange of fire as the bulldozers destroyed the border post in an area under full Palestinian control, but no one was reported injured, the official said.
Israeli forces withdrew late Tuesday from an area in the northern Gaza Strip it had retaken during a fierce land, ground and sea assault over Monday night in retaliation for a mortar attack on a nearby Israeli town.
Palestinian security officials reported that half a dozen troop transporters and special lorries transporting tanks were seen withdrawing from the area late Tuesday night and the Israeli Army later confirmed that the pullout was complete.