Israel has the right and responsibility to take measures to prevent unlawful
violence. The Israeli government equally has an obligation to ensure that the
measures it takes to protect Israelis are carried out in accordance with
international human rights and humanitarian law. As the occupying power of
the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, Israel has an
obligation to respect and protect the human rights of all people in these
areas.
Avoiding Scrutiny
Throughout the period 4-15 April, the IDF denied access to Jenin refugee camp
to all, including medical doctors and nurses, ambulances, humanitarian relief
services, human rights organizations, and journalists.
Amnesty International and other organizations tried to get information by the
only means that seemed possible: constantly telephoning residents under
curfew. By 12 April residents said that the continuous curfew had led to an
acute food and water shortage. In some cases children were drinking waste
water and became sick as a result. One resident from the edge of the camp
said that: "the camp smells of death due to the scattered bodies, some bodies
are buried under the rubble, others crushed by tanks, and the rest are left
lying in the streets."
In the old city area of Nablus, the situation was quite similar. Cut off from
the outside world by a cordon of IDF tanks from 3 to 22 April, Amnesty
International and other human rights defenders relied on the telephone to
find out what was happening; each resident was cut off and could speak only
of the immediate surroundings. They described the lack of food and water and
the fact they were unable to move from their houses. Occupants of one house
reported the body, apparently of a Palestinian fighter, lying in the street
outside; they said that when people had tried to go to him IDF soldiers shot
at them. From inside the house they had watched the unknown Palestinian die;
then they watched dogs eat the body as it decomposed.
Day after day residents begged for help by telephone, describing the sight
and smell to medical organizations and human rights defenders unable to gain
access and powerless to help.
The barriers erected by the IDF against the eyes of the outside world in
Jenin and Nablus during April 2002 are typical of the barriers erected by the
Israeli authorities over the past two years of the intifada. Today, every
Palestinian town or village is blocked by heaps of earth, concrete blocks or
IDF manned barriers. Israeli citizens are not allowed to enter the Occupied
Palestinian Territories without special permission which is difficult to
obtain. Palestinians from the Occupied Territories are banned from traveling
on main roads and checked - and often turned back - at the Israeli-manned
barrier outside every town.
Since May 2002 a Palestinian cannot travel from one town to another in the
Occupied Territories without a special pass. Most Palestinians do not have
permits and thus do not travel. Gaza is cut off from the West Bank and entry
to Jerusalem prohibited without special permission to all Palestinians from
the Occupied Territories.
The Israeli authorities claim that there are reasons for this. No Israeli may
enter a Palestinian area as many Israeli civilians have been targeted and
killed by Palestinian armed groups. No Palestinian may enter Jerusalem or
travel on certain roads as many armed Palestinians have carried out attacks
on Israelis. Apart from IDF tanks, armoured personnel carriers and jeeps no
one now travels freely along the roads of the Occupied Territories.
In April 2002 not only ambulances from the Palestine Red Crescent Society
(PRCS) were banned from access to Jenin and Nablus: those from the
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) were equally banned. Not only
Israelis and Palestinians were banned from seeing what was happening in Jenin
and Nablus, but diplomats, journalists and international human rights and
humanitarian organizations were prevented from entrance to closed military
areas.
A United Nations (UN) visiting mission ordered by the UN Commission on Human
Rights on 5 April 2002 and headed by Mary Robinson, UN High Commissioner for
Human Rights was not allowed to enter Israel and disbanded; even a high level
Fact-Finding mission agreed between Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan and welcomed by unanimous vote of the UN
Security Council was not allowed to enter Israel and disbanded after weeks of
negotiations.
The Israeli State has the primary obligation under international law to
investigate human rights violations, prosecute perpetrators, effect
punishment, provide mechanisms that ensure prompt and adequate reparations
for victims and ensure that violations are not repeated. However, the Israeli
government, which set up the Or Commission of Inquiry to investigate the
killing by security forces of 13 Palestinians killed in Israel at the
beginning of the intifada in September/October 2000, has not carried out a
prompt, thorough and independent investigation of any of the 1700 killings of
Palestinians in the Occupied Territories.
Background to this Report
Since the beginning of the current intifada Amnesty International has sent 15
research missions to the region; more than half of them have taken place
during the second year of the intifada. Eight reports were issued during the
same period.
After Operation Defensive Shield began an Amnesty International delegate, Dr
Kathleen Cavanaugh, an expert in international law, remained in the Occupied
Territories for more than two months to monitor human rights developments.
Among Amnesty International's delegates during April and May 2002 were
Amnesty International's Secretary General Irene Khan, Derrick Pounder,
Professor of Forensic Medicine, who visited Jenin and performed autopsies on
bodies, and Major (ret) David Holley, a military advisor, who spent several
weeks in the area in order to analyse military strategies and assess military
necessity.
This report looks specifically at the actions of the IDF in Jenin and Nablus
between April and June 2002. It examines allegations of unlawful killings;
the use of "human shields"; torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading
treatment of people detained; blocking of medical assistance, food and water;
and the destruction of property, including damage or destruction of the civil
infrastructure, commercial buildings, historic and religious buildings and
homes. This report also reflects the means employed by the State of Israel to
keep its human rights practices shielded from internal and external scrutiny.
Amnesty International delegates visited the sites of cases documented in the
report and examined scenes of alleged violations. Their research included a
review of Israeli High Court cases and an examination of written records
(hospital lists, medical records, ambulance logs), public statements, and
video documentation. Delegates conducted interviews with representatives of
municipalities, local and international medical personnel, observers from the
media and many Israelis, Palestinians and internationals working for local
and international human rights and humanitarian organizations, and carried
out scores of interviews with residents of Jenin and Nablus, victims or their
families. Testimony and other evidence were cross-checked for accuracy.
In this way Amnesty International researchers pieced together the events of
Jenin and Nablus.
The concerns regarding military operations that are raised in this report
were discussed in May with Major General Giora Eiland, Head of the IDF Plans
and Policy Directorate, and with Colonel Daniel Reisner, the head of the
International Law Department of the IDF. Their comments and explanations are
reflected in this report. In June and July Amnesty International submitted
all the cases in the report to the IDF for comment; by the end of September
2002 no response had been received
In Jenin and Nablus the IDF carried out actions which violate international
human rights and humanitarian law; some of these actions amount to grave
breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of
Civilian Persons in Time of War of 1949 (the Fourth Geneva Convention) and
are war crimes.
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