Weekly Report On Israeli Human Rights Violations in Occupied Palestine

Israeli violations of international law and humanitarian law in the OPT continued during the reporting period (22 – 28 March 2012):

Shooting: During the reporting period, IOF wounded 3 Palestinian civilians and arrested them during an incursion into Rammoun village, northeast of Ramallah. A child was also wounded by the explosion of a mysterious object near Nablus. ■ During the reporting period, IOF used excessive force to disperse peaceful demonstrations organized in protest to Israeli settlement activities and the construction of the annexation wall in the West Bank. As a result, a Palestinian civilian was wounded, and dozens of Palestinian civilians and international human rights defenders suffered from tear gas inhalation. ■ Additionally, a Palestinian civilian was wounded by Israeli settlers who attacked Palestinian shepherds near Ramallah. Incursions: During the reporting period, IOF conducted at least 65 military incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank, during which they arrested 19 Palestinian civilians, including a child, two women and a patient. ■ In the Gaza Strip, IOF conducted one limited incursion into the central Gaza Strip. Restrictions on Movement: Israel had continued to impose a tightened siege on the OPT and imposed severe restrictions on the movement of Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem. ■ The illegal Israeli-imposed closure of the Gaza Strip, which has steadily tightened since June 2007, has had a disastrous impact on the humanitarian and economic situation in the Gaza Strip. The illegal closure has caused not only a humanitarian crisis but a crisis of human rights and human dignity for the population of the Gaza Strip. Measures declared recently to ease the blockade are vague, purely cosmetic and fail to deal with the root causes of the crisis, which can only be addressed by an immediate and complete lifting of the closure, including lifting the travel ban into and out of the Gaza Strip and the ban on exports. Palestinians in Gaza may no longer suffer from the same shortage of goods, but they will remain economically dependent and unable to care for themselves, and socially, culturally and academically isolated from the rest of the world. ■ IOF have continued to impose severe restrictions on the movement of Palestinian civilians throughout the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem. Thousands of Palestinian civilians from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip continue to be denied access to Jerusalem.

PressTV: Israel ruins four Palestinian homes in West Bank
PIC: IOF soldiers raze Palestinian home, power network in Beit Jala