Israeli report: 80% of Palestinians killed in curfew are innocent civilians
A report issued by the Israeli human rights group, B��셳selem, has stopped short of accusing the Israeli occupation army of deliberately targeting Palestinian children for murder.
Source : BASE21
by Christian/Base21 Media Activist
dvs-b@t-online.de
A report issued by the Israeli human rights group, B’tselem, has stopped short of accusing the Israeli occupation army of deliberately targeting Palestinian children for murder.
The report, issued Wednesday, pointed out that more than 80% of Palestinian civilians killed by Israeli occupation troops during so-called curfew-enforcing activity were children.
“ Curfew is no longer a tool to meet specific security needs, but a sweeping means to collective punishment.”
The report, entitled “Lethal Curfew” underscored how the Israeli army uses curfew as a rubric to hunt down Palestinian civilians for murder.
“Shooting a person simply because he left his home during curfews constitutes excessive use of force,” said the report, carefully avoiding the use of stronger words such as “criminal” and a “crime against humanity.”
The report said curfews created “problems” for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, increasing malnutrition and disrupting schools, and are so extensive that they violate the right to freedom of movement included in international law.
Palestinian leaders described the report as “a clear understatement of reality.”
“The curfew is slow death for millions of people, it creates more than problems, it kills people,” said a Palestinian spokesman in Al-Khalil.
The spokesman, who demanded anonymity, pointed out that the Israeli army routinely issued vague instructions as when the curfews are lifted and reinstated in order to give itself a pretext to kill Palestinian children and civilians.
Meanwhile eight Palestinians were killed and some 40 were wounded when the IDF opened fire Thursday on Palestinians who were firing at an IDF crew near the Gaza Strip town of Rafah, near the Termit outpost, Thursday afternoon.
Palestinians said among those killed in the clashes were two children: a 4-year-old boy and a 12-year-old girl. Another two of the victims, they said, were women.
Palestinian sources told Israel Radio the clashes began when the IDF (Israeli “Defense” Forces) began construction work for a new checkpoint in the area.
According to Palestinian sources quoted by Israeli news agency Itim, the victims were killed when an IDF tank fired at houses south of Rafah. The tank also fired at a local UNRWA-run school, wounding more than 15 schoolchildren, some of them very severely. IDF made no comment to these allegations.
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