The human rights group Amnesty International has alleged in a new report that Israeli troops were regularly using excessive, reckless violence in the West Bank. The World Jewish Congress (WJC) dismissed the allegations, and an Israeli government spokesman said the report “smacks of bias, discrimination and racism" and accused Amnesty of wanting to deprive Israel of the right to self-defense.
“The IDF operates at the highest military standards and avoids at all costs any unnecessary loss of life, according to independent military experts,” WJC CEO Robert Singer said. “Amnesty International’s charges are tendentious and its conclusions unfair. Once again, the organization seems to be focusing far more on Israel than on pursuing its mission to expose egregious human-rights violators.”
“Amnesty takes to making up its own laws. In their frenzied public relations stunt to grab a quick headline, they innovate in the legal realm: no right of self-defense under fire [for Israelis],” Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said, adding: “Amnesty lies by omission, and otherwise.”
In the 87-page report, entitled 'Trigger Happy', the human rights group accuses Israel of allowing its soldiers to act with virtual impunity and urged an independent review of deaths in the West Bank. The IDF dismissed the allegations, saying security forces had seen a "substantial increase" in Palestinian violence and Amnesty had revealed a "complete lack of understanding" about the difficulties soldiers faced.
AI said it had documented the deaths of 25 civilians during this period, all but three of whom died last year. "The report presents a body of evidence that shows a harrowing pattern of unlawful killings and unwarranted injuries of Palestinian civilians by Israeli forces in the West Bank," said Philip Luther, the director of the Middle East and north Africa program at Amnesty International. "In some, there is evidence that they were victims of willful killings, which would amount to war crimes," the London-based group said.
The IDF said that Amnesty was ignoring the substantial increase in Palestinian violence against Israel in the last year. In 2013, Palestinians had injured 132 Israelis, almost double the number of those harmed in 2012, the IDF said. It noted that this was “no surprise, considering that over 5,000 incidents of rock-hurling took place, half of which were toward main roads.”
According to the 'Jerusalem Post', the Israeli military said there had been 66 further terror attacks, which included shootings, the planting of [improvised explosive devices], blunt weapon attacks and the abduction and murder of a soldier.” The report also showed “a complete lack of understanding as to operational challenges the IDF is posed with in the West Bank, the IDF said. “Where feasible, the IDF contains this life-threatening violence using riot dispersal means, including loud sirens, water cannons, sound grenades and tear gas. Only once these tools have been exhausted, and human life and safety remains under threat, is the use of precision munition authorized," declared the IDF.
British expert: 'Piece of naked anti-Israel propaganda'
Colonel Richard Kemp, a former British commander in Afghanistan and expert on the Middle East conflict, called the Amnesty report "a piece of naked anti-Israel propaganda" and "a stark reminder of just how far they have lost their way." Writing for the website of the 'Jewish Chronicle', Kemp said: "The cynical timing of the report, published during Israel Apartheid Week, can only have been intended to fuel the demonization of the Jewish state in schools and on campuses." He concluded: "Instead of using its resources to make a serious contribution towards easing the plight of the Palestinian people, Amnesty has produced a distorted report that will be exploited as a tool to incite even more hatred."
