The Occupied Territories in 2022: largest number of Palestinians killed by Israel in the West Bank since 2004
8 January 2023
Palestinians killed
In the West Bank (including East Jerusalem), Israeli forces killed 146 Palestinians – the largest number since 2004. Among the persons killed were five women and 34 minors, the youngest of them 12 years old; seven were 50 or older, and the eldest was 78 years old.
Israeli civilians killed five Palestinians, including one minor. Three other Palestinians, including a minor, were killed in incidents in which both Israeli forces and Israeli civilians participated, and it cannot be determined who killed them.
In the Gaza Strip, Israeli forces killed 32 Palestinians, including three women and eight minors, all in another round of fighting (“Operation Breaking Dawn”).
In Israel, Israeli forces killed four Palestinians.
Seventeen Palestinians were killed by Palestinians: 15, including nine minors, were killed in the Gaza Strip by rockets or mortar bombs which Palestinian militants fired at Israel and landed in the Gaza Strip during “Operation Breaking Dawn”; and two were killed in the West Bank by Palestinian gunfire.
Five Palestinians were executed by the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip.
Israelis killed
In the West Bank, Palestinians killed six Israeli civilians and four members of the Israeli forces.
In Israel, Palestinians killed 11 Israeli civilians, including one minor, as well as one police officer and three foreign nationals.
This is the largest number of civilians (Israeli and foreign) killed by Palestinians in the West Bank since 2018, and in Israel since 2008.
West Bank: 146 Palestinians killed in deadliest year since 2004
Of the 146 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank over the last year, 42, including two minors, were killed while armed or allegedly armed. Most of the 42 also opened fire at Israeli forces or Israeli civilians.
Of the remaining 104, B'Tselem's investigation found regarding 63 (60%), 19 of them minors, that their killing was unlawful and immoral and cannot be justified. Eight were killed on their way home or strolling nearby, four while trying to enter Israel without a permit, and six while documenting Israeli forces entering Palestinian communities or ensuing confrontations, or while watching the latter. In addition:
- 21 Palestinians were killed during incidents in which Palestinians threw stones at Israeli forces or at roads;
- 14 Palestinians were killed after attacking, trying to attack or allegedly trying to attack Israeli forces, who shot and killed them after the danger they posed – if any – had passed, or when non-lethal means could have been used to thwart it;
- and three al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades operatives, at least one of them armed, were executed in Nablus by Israeli police who stood in the way of the car they were traveling in and fired dozens of bullets at it.
This past year, Israeli forces also killed the most Palestinian minors in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) since 2004: 34 children and teenagers ranging in age from 12 through 17 years old. Among them were Nader Rayan, 16, was shot in the back while fleeing police officers who continued to shoot him even after he fell; Thaer Mislet, 16, shot in the chest by soldiers while watching other youths throwing stones at them; and Muhammad Suliman, 16, shot in the neck by soldiers emerging from an ambush, after he threw stones at them and towards Route 60 along with other youths.
In October, Israeli forces killed 23 Palestinians, including five minors, in one of the deadliest months in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) in the last decade. Among the persons killed: Fayez Damdum, 17, shot in the back of the head by Border Police officers while fleeing them; ‘Alaa Zaghal, 21, shot in the head by a soldier who was in a military jeep, while throwing stones at military jeeps that entered the village; Mahdi Ladadwah, 17, shot in the chest by soldiers lying in ambush when he was about to throw a stone from a slingshot at forces withdrawing from his village; and Qusai Tamimi, 19, shot in the chest by soldiers after he and other youths burned tires by the entrance to the village.
The killing of Shireen Abu Akleh and ‘Omar As’ad, both US citizens, garnered wide attention and drew international criticism. Yet many other cases received little to no attention at all. For example, soldiers killed Muhammad Salah, 13, after a Molotov cocktail he hurled at the Separation Barrier landed near a spot where soldiers were lying in ambush. A week later, soldiers killed ‘Ammar Abu ‘Afifah, 18, who was strolling with a friend. One of the soldiers called out to the two youths to stop, and they fled. Abu ‘Afifah fell but managed to get up, at which point the soldiers shot him. Soldiers also shot Salah Sawaftah, 58, in the head while he was on his way home after prayers and seeking cover from an exchange of gunfire nearby.
These figures illustrate Israel’s reckless open-fire policy in the Occupied Territories, which grew deadlier over the last year. Every Palestinian is “suspect” and any risk posed to Israeli forces – real or imagined – is met with lethal gunfire. These cases are not “exceptions,” but an integral policy feature of the Israeli apartheid regime, which relies on violence to promote its guiding principle of Jewish supremacy. In order to advance this principle, the regime also works to ensure that no one will be held accountable for these killings: the forces who pulled the trigger, the commanders who gave the order, the legal advisors who authorized the open-fire policy, or the military and political echelons that shape it.
Gaza Strip: Another round of fighting claims lives of 32 Palestinians
Over the course of three days in August, Israel attacked the Gaza Strip (“Operation Breaking Dawn”). Air and ground strikes killed 32 Palestinians, including three women and eight minors. At least half of the persons killed – 16 Palestinians, including all the women and minors killed in this round of fighting – did not participate in the fighting.
Of the fatalities, 90% were killed by airstrikes as part of Israel’s open-fire policy during rounds of fighting in Gaza. Israel maintains this policy although its lethal outcomes are known to military and political decision-makers, and to the legal advisors who repeatedly sanction it nonetheless.
Demolition of homes and other structures
In 2022, 500 Palestinians in the West Bank, 255 of them minors, were left homeless after 182 residential structures were demolished by Israeli authorities or on their orders. In total, Israel demolished 784 structures – including water cisterns, storerooms, agricultural buildings, businesses and public buildings. This is the highest number of demolitions documented by B'Tselem since it began documenting the demolition of non-residential buildings in 2012.
In East Jerusalem, 151 buildings were demolished, 60% of them by their owners after the authorities issued demolition orders. Of the demolished buildings, 84 were residential, leaving 286 people, 143 of them minors, homeless.
The Israeli apartheid regime bars almost all Palestinian development in large parts of the West Bank, including in East Jerusalem – while advancing extensive construction for Jews. This policy leaves Palestinians no choice but to build without a permit in order to have a roof over their heads, and the Israeli authorities then issue demolition orders for these structures.
Israel also demolishes the homes of families of Palestinians who killed, or tried to kill, Israeli civilians, soldiers or police officers. This penalization of relatives who are not suspected or accused of anything is a form of prohibited collective punishment. In 2022, Israel demolished 17 homes as “punishment” – a record number since 2016. This left 63 people, 30 of them minors, homeless.
