HRJ Palestine Collective

Facebook Tells Moderators to Allow Graphic Images of Russian Airstrikes but Censors Israeli Attacks

B'Tselem: US-Backed Israeli Whitewash

All investigations published so far conclude that Israel is responsible for the killing of journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. It is not clear on what grounds does the US State Department seek to dismiss her killing as “the result of tragic circumstances” and not as a crime for which those responsible should be held to account.

As far as Israel is concerned, its policy regarding the killing of Palestinians has never been anything other than an organized whitewash meant to enable the continuation of the killings with impunity, and it is no different when it comes to a US citizen as in the current case.

The odds that those responsible for the killing of Shireen Abu Akleh will be held to account are all but nonexistent. Meanwhile, Israel’s international impunity remains unchallenged.

This article (see below) about the Samaria Regional Brigade Commander Roi Zweig and the incredible levels of settler violence in the region he's responsible for, gives us a glimpse into the unbelievable relationship between settlers and the IDF.

Here are some examples of how that looks in practice: The right says that settler violence is a fringe phenomenon. Well, that fringe racked up 650 attacks against Palestinians in 2021, and over 400 attacks by the end of May of '22. These attacks are no longer limited to 'extremists', but include what was once seen as the 'mainstream'.

It's difficult not to see the link between the extreme rise is settler violence, and the regional commander who chose to bring his family to spend weekends with the settlers of Yitzhar, some of the most radical settlers, whose violence has even been directed against the IDF itself.

Sources close to Zweig said he was given an ultimatum by settlers — to have soldiers remove Palestinian flags in the Palestinian town of Hawara, or face having to deal with dozens of armed settlers arriving there (presumably to do so themselves). Zweig reported this, but ultimately soldiers were made to take the flags down.

There's a debate on whether Zweig is the settlers' willing accomplice or is simply unable to withstand their pressure. That debate is irrelevant: the facts on the ground speak for themselves — settlers have an incredible amount of sway in IDF decision making.

The result is clear for all to see: an astronomical rise in settler violence. And all the while, the IDF remains silent.
If any of this surprises you, now's the time to read our collection of soldiers' testimonies on settler violence and settler-IDF relations (see link in comments).

Palestinian American Journalist Shireen Abu Akleh Shot Dead While Covering Israeli Raid Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank shot and killed Shireen Abu Akleh, a veteran Palestinian American journalist working for Al Jazeera, as she covered an Israeli army raid on the Jenin refugee camp early this morning. That's according to Al Jazeer...

IDF soldiers were caught on camera vandalizing a Palestinian car - and the IDF's response is to "clarify the rules". If that sounds a little underwhelming, it's worth pointing out that vandalizing Palestinian property as a form of punishment is not official IDF policy, but is something that certainly happens. Here, for example, is the testimony of a soldier who served in the Nahal Reconnaissance Unit in the Hebron area in 2012:

"We were supposed to show him (the Palestinian driver) that the army is there and that laws are being enforced. [So] in the beginning there was a policy that you get to the vehicle, dismantle its wheels, sometimes also take the battery, return it to the [military] base, and simply neutralize his vehicle – [you] make sure that he can't drive it again, and leave him there. Little by little you realize that they (Palestinians whose vehicles have been tampered with) get by, they get picked up. There was one story of two friends (soldiers). [They] got to a car, stopped [it], took them (the passengers) out of the vehicle, zip-ties on hands, eyes blindfolded, see that they have nothing on them. And this is where the creative part begins. In this case they simply got into the vehicle, drove it and crashed it into a concrete wall."

(Link to the full testimony, as well as a picture of the car in question, in the comments.)

The death of an inconvenient Palestinian — by Andrew Mitrovica ➡ https://aje.io/8sf37z

Palestinian children are being indiscriminately arrested as Israel’s ‘war of attrition’ continues. Read more: aje.io/v7dbgd

Israel is taken to the International Criminal Court as it continues to demolish Palestinian homes in the occupied territories https://aje.io/55g5yu

Israeli Forces Kill 80-Year-Old Palestinian American Man in Violent Arrest In the occupied West Bank, Israeli forces killed an 80-year-old Palestinian American man Wednesday. Witnesses say Omar Abdulmajeed Asaad was stopped by Israeli forces while driving home, then dragged out of the car, gagged and handcuffed, and left to di...

Together with the Palestinian Centre for Human rights (PCHR) we published a new report today that analyzes the investigations Israel claims to have conducted following the Great March of Return protests in the Gaza Strip.

The report shows how Israel worked to whitewash the truth and protect the political and military officials responsible – instead of taking action against the individuals who devised and implemented the unlawful open-fire policy, which resulted in the killing of more than 200 Palestinians and the injury of some 8,000 others.

Israel was quick to announce it is investigating the protests, primarily due to the proceedings underway at the International Criminal Court in the Hague. The reason for the announcement lies with one of the ICC’s guiding principles – the principle of complementarity, which means the Court will assert jurisdiction only when the state in question is “unwilling or unable” to carry out its own investigation. Once a state has investigated the incidents, the Court will not intervene.

However, declaring an investigation is underway is not enough to stave off intervention by the ICC. The investigation must be effective, be directed at the higher-ranking officials responsible for devising and implementing the policy, and lead to action against them. Israel’s investigations in relation to the Gaza protests do not meet these requirements. They consist entirely of the military investigating itself and have not examined the unlawful open-fire policy regulations handed down to security forces or the policies implemented during the protests. Instead, they focus exclusively on lower-ranking soldiers and on the question of whether they acted contrary to these illegal orders.

Moreover, while the protests were taking place, Israel’s Supreme Court heard petitions contesting the legality of the open-fire policy. The justices dismissed the petitions and allowed the military to continue employing this policy. However, it did not uphold the regulations being implemented in the field – as these were never presented to the Court. The Court only approved the regulations that the state claimed the military was following, ignoring the glaring disparity between the state’s claims and reality on the ground. By the time the petitions were heard, dozens of protesters had been killed and almost 2,000 injured.

The military law enforcement system has fallen short of fulfilling even the limited role assigned to it – investigating “exceptional incidents” only. The military arbitrarily decided to investigate only cases in which security forces had killed Palestinians, providing no explanation for this decision. The thousands of incidents in which Palestinians were injured – some so gravely they were left paralyzed or had to undergo amputations – were left uninvestigated.

The number of people wounded in these protests is almost unfathomable: a total of 13,457 Palestinians, 8,079 of them wounded by live fire, 2,424 by rubber-coated metal bullets, and 2,954 by tear gas canisters that hit them directly. Of the wounded, 155 suffered injuries resulting in amputation. None of these injuries is being investigated.

Government-level officials, the Attorney General, the Supreme Court judges, the MAG and other senior military officials are responsible for devising the unlawful open-fire policy and for its implementation. They are the ones who should be investigated and held accountable for its lethal outcomes. The investigations conducted by Israel are no more than a smokescreen designed – according to Israel – to protect the officials responsible from the ICC. In fact, they prove the opposite: that Israel is unwilling and unable to investigate the human rights abuses carried out by its security forces during the Great March of Return protests in the Gaza Strip. Considering this, the responsibility to ensure accountability for these violations now lies with the ICC.

To our report:
https://www.btselem.org/publications/202112_unwilling_and_unable