Amnesty International Report 1994 - Israel

ISRAEL AND THE OCCUPIED TERRITORIES

Approximately 13,000 Palestinians were arrested on security grounds. About 300 were held in administrative detention without charge or trial and over 15,300 were tried before military courts. About 1,000 prisoners and detainees were released in May and October. At the end of the year about 10,400 remained held, including over 140 administrative detainees. Palestinian and Israeli prisoners of conscience, including conscientious objectors to military service, were among those held during the year. Palestinians were systematically tortured or ill-treated during interrogation. Three died in custody in cases in which medical negligence may have been a contributory factor. About 150 Palestinians were shot dead by Israeli forces, some of them in circumstances suggesting extrajudicial executions or other unjustifiable killings. Palestinian armed groups committed human rights abuses, including torture and deliberate and arbitrary killings.

In January the parliament repealed legislation in force since 1986 which prohibited unauthorized contacts with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and had previously been used to imprison prisoners of conscience. In September the government and the PLO signed a Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements. Under the arrangement, the government was due to transfer administrative responsibilities to a newly established Palestinian authority in the Gaza Strip and the Jericho area in the West Bank in December. The implementation of this arrangement had not started by the end of the year.

The number of attacks by armed Palestinians increased. Some 35 Israeli civilians and 25 members of the security forces were killed in such attacks, as were over 100 Palestinian civilians (see below).

The authorities frequently used massive firepower against houses in which Palestinians sought for arrest were believed to be hiding. Such operations resulted in extensive damage and may have been intended also as collective punishment. In March the West Bank and Gaza Strip were closed off after an increase in the number of attacks against Israelis. Palestinian residents subsequently required special authorization to enter East Jerusalem and Israel.

The Palestinian deportees who had remained stranded in south Lebanon since their expulsion from Israel in late 1992 (see Amnesty International Report 1993) were all allowed to return by December, although 18 chose to remain. Some of those who returned were arrested and held in administrative detention, such as Dr 'Abd al-'Aziz al-Rantisi, spokesman for the deportees. Thirty other deportees expelled in previous years were allowed to return in April and May.

About 300 Palestinians were held during the year under renewable administrative detention orders of up to six months. They included prisoners of conscience. A two-step judicial appeal process with legal counsel was available to detainees. However, legal safeguards were undermined: crucial evidence about the reasons for detention was almost always withheld from detainees and their lawyers, although it was available to the presiding judges.

Prisoners of conscience held in administrative detention during the year included Ahmad Muhareb, a leading activist in Fatah, the main faction of the PLO. He was freed in September after a six-month order imposed in August was reduced on appeal. The appeal judge stressed that there was no evidence linking Ahmad Muhareb to violence.

Israeli prisoners of conscience included conscientious objectors to military service. Among them was Fu'ad Mu'addeh, a Druze from Yarka aged 18, who served two 28-day terms of imprisonment starting in August and October for refusing to be conscripted in protest at the occupation of the Occupied Territories. Other objectors included Eran Paz, who served a 28-day sentence in March for refusing to do reserve duty in the Gaza Strip.

At least 20 Lebanese nationals taken prisoner in Lebanon between 1986 and 1989 remained held, apparently in administrative detention. The authorities said that they were "being held legally" and that their detention was "subject to continuous judicial review". Among those held were Shaikh 'Abd al-Karim 'Ubayd, a Shi'a Muslim leader who had been abducted in Lebanon in 1989, and six Lebanese Shi'a Muslims who had been taken prisoner in Lebanon by the Lebanese Forces militia in 1987 and secretly transferred to Israel in 1990, where they remained held in incommunicado detention (see Amnesty International Report 1993).

Over 200 detainees were held at any one time in the Khiam detention centre in an area of south Lebanon controlled by Israel and the South Lebanon Army. They were held incommunicado outside any legal framework (see Lebanon entry).

Over 15,300 Palestinians were tried by military courts on charges including violent acts. Adults were frequently held for up to 18 days before appearing before a judge, and were denied access to lawyers and relatives for longer periods. Confessions were often obtained during these periods of incommunicado detention. The use of plea bargains remained prevalent and long delays continued to occur.

In October Ahmad Qatamesh, allegedly a senior official of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), was eventually released on bail but placed in administrative detention while trial proceedings against him continued. He had been arrested in September 1992 (see Amnesty International Report 1993) and his trial had been postponed several times.

Palestinians under interrogation continued to be systematically tortured or ill-treated. Common methods included beatings, hooding with dirty sacks, sleep deprivation, solitary confinement (including in closet-sized dark cells), and prolonged shackling to a small chair. For example, Nader Qumsieh received injuries to his testicles while held under interrogation in May in the Dhahiriyyah detention centre. One medical report claimed that Nader Qumsieh said he had fallen down stairs, whereas he repeatedly stated he was injured as a result of torture. He was released from interrogation but remained held in administrative detention until July. A government investigation into his treatment was apparently continuing at the end of the year.

In April Ayman Nassar died in Barzalai Hospital 13 days after his arrest during a military operation in Deir al-Balah in which a "smoke bomb" was used. He was reportedly beaten immediately after arrest. According to a Danish pathologist who attended the official autopsy, Ayman Nassar died from "pneumonia due to ruptured lung blisterspresumably due to irritating smokeand possibly influenced through beating on the chest". The pathologist believed Ayman Nassar might have survived had adequate medical treatment been provided earlier. A coroner's inquest was initiated. In August and October two other prisoners died in custody. Medical negligence also appeared to have contributed to their deaths.

In May a confidential "medical fitness form", apparently used in interrogation centres, was publicized by the Davar newspaper. Doctors allegedly used the form to certify whether a detainee could withstand solitary confinement, tying-up, hooding and prolonged standing during interrogation. In June the Israeli Medical Association announced that it would forbid doctors to use the form. The authorities suggested the form had been a mistake.

In August the High Court of Justice rejected a 1991 petition aimed at obtaining a ruling on the legality of the existing secret guidelines for interrogation by the General Security Service (GSS) and their publication. The guidelines, allowing "the exertion of a moderate measure of physical pressure", were first drawn up in 1987 by the Landau Commission of Inquiry. Following a review in April, the authorities said that methods of interrogation involving food and drink deprivation, denial of access to a toilet and exposure to extreme temperatures were not permitted.

Mordechai Vanunu remained held in solitary confinement for the seventh consecutive year (see Amnesty International Reports 1988 to 1993), a situation considered by Amnesty International to be cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. During the year it was disclosed that Avraham Klingberg, a 75-year-old physician and university professor, had been imprisoned since 1983 on spying charges and apparently held in solitary confinement until 1991.

About 150 Palestinians were shot dead by Israeli forces. Some were killed during clashes with the army or border police, or during operations ostensibly aimed at arresting them. Others were killed while apparently not involved in any violent activity and they may have been victims of extrajudicial executions or other unjustifiable killings. Najah Abu Dalal died in April reportedly after being shot in the head by a soldier stationed on a building in the Nusayrat refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. She was in a private courtyard when she was shot. Fares al-Kurdi, aged 18 months, was shot in the chest and killed in May, apparently while sheltering in a shop doorway with his father during clashes in the Jabalia refugee camp, also in the Gaza Strip. In October the High Court of Justice rejected a 1990 petition against the existing guidelines on the use of firearms.

According to the authorities, 35 Israeli soldiers were tried for violating military orders. A soldier was sentenced in May to one year's imprisonment, half to be served doing military labour. He had been convicted of causing death by negligence after the killing in November 1992 of Amjad Jaber, a 12-year-old Palestinian, in al-Ram near Jerusalem. The Military Appeals Court accepted an appeal by the prosecution and ruled that the entire sentence be served in prison. The Supreme Court rejected in May an appeal by the prosecution against the acquittal of a Border Police officer for the killing of Fadi Zabaqli in 1989 (see Amnesty International Report 1993). Amnesty International learned in March that the State Attorney had recommended that disciplinary measures should be brought against a medic and a GSS officer in relation to the death in custody of Mustafa 'Akkawi in February 1992 (see Amnesty International Report 1993).

In September John Demjanjuk was deported after his acquittal on appeal by the Supreme Court in July. The Supreme Court overturned his conviction and death sentence passed in 1988, citing doubts as to whether he was the "Ivan the Terrible" guilty of crimes against humanity (see Amnesty International Reports 1989 to 1993). No other person was under sentence of death.

Palestinian armed groups committed grave human rights abuses, including torture and deliberate and arbitrary killings. In October some 12 men were shot in the legs by alleged members of Fatah, apparently as punishment for acts such as burglary in Gaza. Israeli civilians were deliberately killed in attacks for which the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), the Islamic Jihad, the PFLP and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine claimed responsibility. Among the victims was Ian Feinberg, an Israeli lawyer killed in Gaza in April in an attack claimed by the PFLP. Hamas took responsibility for the capture and subsequent killing of two Israeli soldiers in August and October. Members of Palestinian groups also killed over 100 Palestinians, most of them suspected "collaborators" with the Israeli authorities. Some may have been killed because of their political activities.

Amnesty International called on the government and the PLO to ensure that strong human rights safeguards were integral to any peace settlement.

Amnesty International sought the immediate and unconditional release of prisoners of conscience and the return of Palestinian deportees. It called for administrative detainees to be tried promptly and fairly, or be released. It also called for an end to the use of interrogation methods amounting to torture or ill-treatment and for full compliance with international standards on the use of firearms and impartial investigations of related abuses. Amnesty International's delegates repeatedly visited the country during the year.

In response to Amnesty International's specific concerns about killings of children, the authorities said that because of an increase in attacks by Palestinians, "soldiers have had to open fire more frequently in self-defence" and therefore there were more situations in which children were "liable to be killed accidentally or wounded". The authorities added that in some cases the Israeli army "was not aware of their presence".

The army promised to provide Amnesty International with the findings of investigations into several cases of killings raised by the organization in May, but had not done so by the end of the year.

Amnesty International expressed concern about attacks carried out on houses where suspects might have been hiding. The army denied that such attacks were a punitive measure. It stressed that those sought for arrest were given the opportunity to give themselves up and that residents whose houses were damaged could apply for compensation. However, the authorities did not clarify the specific evidence presented by Amnesty International suggesting that explosives were used after the storming of houses.

In oral statements to the UN Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) in February and to its Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities in August, Amnesty International included reference to its concerns in the Israeli-Occupied Territories, including south Lebanon.

In March the UNCHR decided to appoint a Special Rapporteur in respect of the Israeli-Occupied Territories.

Amnesty International condemned torture and deliberate and arbitrary killings by Palestinian groups and appealed to them, including the PLO and Hamas, to end human rights abuses, particularly attacks on civilians.

In October PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat stated to an Amnesty International delegation in Tunis that the PLO was committed to respect and incorporate into Palestinian legislation all internationally recognized human rights standards.