Доклад: Israeli - Palestinian Conflict /english/

Israel - Palestine Conflict

Damning new evidence of Israel's abuse of Arab children has emerged,
adding another tier to the stack of human-rights violations committed
over the past six weeks of violence.

It comes amid deepening controversy surrounding the visit to the region
of Mary Robinson, the UN Commissioner for Human Rights, whom Israel's
Foreign Minister has refused to meet to discuss accusations of excessive
force.

A report by Amnesty International released last week, but barely
publicised, describes how Arab teenagers have been arrested in the
middle of the night, subjected to high-pressure interrogations
including beatings and held behind bars for more than a month.

The focus of Amnesty's latest investigation was not the Palestinians
taking part in riots in the occupied territories, many scores of whom
have been shot dead by the Israeli army, but members of Israel's one
million Arab population.

Hundreds of Palestinians living within Israel have been arrested after
riots erupted in Arab towns early last month in protest over killings by
the Israeli security services in the early days of the intifada. Some
have been held in custody, denied bail or immediate access to lawyers.

Amnesty's findings are further evidence that, after moves towards
reform, Israel is slipping back into the pattern of widespread
human-rights violations that characterised the first six-year intifada.

It includes the story of two young Palestinians in east Jerusalem who
say they were beaten, shackled, and kicked while lying on the ground
with hoods on their heads. They say they were repeatedly slapped during
interrogation. One said that 20 police officers entered their detention
cell where he and 30 other young Arabs were held and randomly beat them
with batons.

Israel's Arab population a fifth of the total has long complained of
sweeping civil-rights violations by the Jewish majority. But the riots,
the worst in the 52-year history of the state, dealt a severe blow to
the already strained inter-ethnic relations. Thirteen Israeli Arabs were
killed during the unrest. Since then, Jewish suspicions that Israel's
Arab population is a fifth column for rebellious Palestinians in the
occupied territories have deepened.

According to Ha'aretz newspaper, the security forces have drawn up plans
to fortify Jewish communities close to Arab villages in Israel on the
grounds that they are next to "hostile populations". The government
plans to begin a major demographic drive to increase the Jewish
population in predominantly Arab areas, notably Galilee.

Amnesty's report states that Palestinians arrested, including children
(those under 18), were beaten, shouted at, and threatened while
indetention. It says that a round-up of Palestinians is still continuing
in Israel, a month after the riots ended. Although they are mostly
accused of relatively minor public-order offences, some have been held
in custody for weeks in what the Israeli authorities justify as an
effort to establish calm.

The human rights group also says that several hundred Jews were arrested
after anti-Palestinian riots, some of whom have also been badly
mistreated. But a far higher proportion of Palestinians have been kept
behind bars.