Publications

For over a year, Israel has been waging an unrestrained war against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and within the State of Israel. The violence that has always characterized the Israeli apartheid regime’s treatment of Palestinians is now appearing in its most direct and exposed form. B’Tselem gathered 25 testimonies from Palestinians who were abused by Israeli soldiers in central Hebron between May and August 2024. The testimonies describe acts of violence, humiliation, and abuse by soldiers directed by soldiers at men, women, teenagers and children. The scale of the violence revealed in these testimonies—carried out openly and, in some cases, filmed by the soldiers themselves—demonstrates that this is not merely the result of personal vendettas or isolated incidents. Instead, it reflects a particularly brutal manifestation of a systematic, long-standing policy of oppression, expulsion and dispossession that lies at the root of the Israeli apartheid regime.
 

Joint report with HaMoked, Center for the Defence of the Individual

The report reveals broad, systemic abuse by Israeli authorities of the human rights of hundreds of Palestinian teenagers arrested every year in East Jerusalem. Affidavits were collected from 60 such boys: they described being pulled out of bed in the middle of the night, handcuffed, interrogated in violation of their rights, then kept in custody under harsh conditions, sometimes for extended periods of time. These practices are part of Israeli policy, which considers the Palestinians living in East Jerusalem unwanted residents.

Over the past twenty years, Israel has taken measures to guarantee a nearly blanket exemption from its obligation under international law to pay compensation to Palestinians harmed by its security forces. In a new report released today (Wed., 8 March), B’Tselem traces the development of this practice and illustrates how it has led to a major drop in the number of claims for damages Palestinians filed in recent years. Israel’s policy reflects how little value it places on the lives, bodies and property of Palestinians living under its control.

The report explains the reasons behind B’Tselem’s decision to no longer refer complaints to the military law enforcement system. It was made based on information compiled from hundreds of complaints B’Tselem has filed with the military, dozens of military investigations and many meetings with officials. B’Tselem will continue reporting violations but will no longer help a system which serves as a whitewash mechanism and that also, in advance, absolves senior military and government officials of responsibility for the policy they set out.

Joint report with HaMoked, Center for the Defence of the Individual

Sleep deprivation; prolonged binding; verbal and sometimes physical abuse; exposure to heat and cold; poor, meager food; small, foul-smelling cells; solitary confinement; unhygienic conditions. A new report by HaMoked and B’Tselem shows these to be standard in interrogations at Israel Security Agency’s (ISA) facility at Shikma Prison. The report is based on affidavits and testimonials by 116 Palestinians interrogated there from Aug. 2013 to March 2014, including at least 14 who had been interrogated under torture by the Palestinian Authority shortly before. The ISA’s interrogation system is run with the approval of Israeli authorities, including the High Court of Justice.

Six months after the Turkel Commission’s issued its report on Israel’s investigative policy of alleged violations of laws of war, B’Tselem published a position paper on the report. While the commission held that Israel fulfills its obligation to investigate, it noted: “in several of the areas examined, there are grounds for amending examination and investigation mechanisms and in several areas, there are grounds for changing the accepted policy”. The commission’s recommendations are far-reaching. Nonetheless, B’Tselem emphasizes that greater systemic change is needed to bring Israel’s military investigative policy up to par.

The report surveys the broad spectrum of issues regarding the Israeli authorities' human rights record in the West Bank and Gaza Strip over the past year, the 44th year of the Israeli occupation. An interactive version of the report is available online and distributed through social media. The report documents a sharp increase in the number of uninvolved Palestinians killed by the Israeli security forces in the Gaza Strip in 2011. There was also an increase in the number of Israeli civilians killed by Palestinians, compared to 2010.

The report reveals for the first time official data on treatment of Palestinian minors in Israeli military court system in the West Bank: 93% of all minors convicted of stone throwing were given jail sentences. The report shows how that the rights of these minors are violated severely throughout the criminal justice process.

The report shows that, over the past year, at least 81 Palestinian minors from Silwan, East Jerusalem, have been arrested or detained for questioning on suspicion of stone throwing. Many were arrested at night, some were questioned without a parent present, and many said the arrest was violent. These methods breach Israel's Youth Law and other laws it applies to East Jerusalem.

The report exposes routine ill-treatment of Palestinians in interrogations. The findings, based on testimonies of 121 Palestinians, show they were subjected to cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment, and in some cases, also to torture. The report calls on Israel to cease the illegal practices, punish the offenders, and compensate the victims.

According to the report Israel is holding 335 Palestinians in lengthy administrative detention. Nine Gazans are being held pursuant to the Internment of Unlawful Combatants Law. The organizations call on Israel to release the administrative detainees or prosecute them in accord with due process.

B'Tselem issued a position paper detailing the guidelines of the necessary Israeli investigation of its conduct during the operation in Gaza. B'Tselem's initial survey of the military operation calls into question Israeli statements that the military acted according to International Humanitarian Law and that responsibility for the harm to the civilian population rests exclusively with Hamas.

According to the report, the number of Israelis and Palestinians killed in clashes in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip dropped. However, there has been deterioration in many other measures of the human rights situation in the Occupied Territories.

Since the beginning of the second intifada, in September 2000, Israel has imposed restrictions on the movement of Palestinians in the West Bank that are unprecedented in scope and time. As a result, the fundamental right of West Bank Palestinians to freedom of movement, their exercise of which was limited in any event, has become a privilege that Israel extends to them as it deems fit. Indeed, Palestinian travel in the West Bank is now an exception, which must be justified to the Israeli authorities, and almost every trip entails uncertainty, friction with soldiers, much waiting, and often great expense.