Israeli human rights organization, B’Tselem, announced on Wednesday that it will no longer continue their strategy of holding Israeli forces accountable for their crimes against Palestinians through internal military mechanisms.
B’Tselem focuses on collecting information and documenting Israeli human rights violations against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. However, after 25 years of their work they have stated their refusal to be complicit in Israel’s military mechanisms.
The organisation has stated in a press briefing on Tuesday that Israel’s actions are “morally unacceptable”.
B’Tselem to stop filing Palestinian abuse complaints with IDF, police: Citing lack of faith in … https://t.co/hFFwVLwb7R TimesofIsrael
— Jewish Community (@JComm_BlogFeeds) May 25, 2016
According to a new report released by the organization, Israeli military mechanisms fail to provide justice for Palestinian victims. Field Researcher for B’Tselem, Iyad Haddad, told Ma’an on Tuesday that it feels it has allowed the continuation of the nearly 50-year Israeli military occupation of the West Bank.
He added, “We provide them with all of our evidence, but we feel sometimes that they use the evidence and testimonies that we provide them to find a contradiction, not to find justice,” Haddad lamented. “Why should we give the Israeli investigators a gun with which to shoot the victims again?”
Since the start of the second intifada in late 2000, of the 739 complaints filed by B’Tselem of Palestinians being killed, injured, used as human shields, or having their property damaged by Israeli forces, roughly 70 percent saw no action being, or in an investigation never being opened.
"We became subcontractors to the occupation": B'Tselem ends work with Israeli armyhttps://t.co/JPVoWzKLXO pic.twitter.com/kHs72FrtEF
— Ma'an News Agency (@MaanNewsAgency) May 25, 2016
According to the report, only three percent of cases resulted in charges being brought against the soldiers, according to the report.
“We became subcontractors to the occupation,” Yael Stein, a research director of B’Tselem, said, adding that the organization’s accountability work served to “legitimize the whole occupation.”
(MA’AN, MONDOWEISS, PC)
