Ignoring the Fourth Geneva Convention and other international laws, Israel has routinely conducted targeted assassinations, collective punishments, retaliatory massacres such as that in the Sabra, Shatila, Jenin and Nablus refugee camps, and arrests and imprisons many thousands of Palestinian prisoners at any given time (from 7,500-11,000), most without charges or due process protections as either questionable "security threats" under military jurisdiction or "administrative detention" if no credible charges can be claimed. These detainees usually include several hundred children isolated from their families for months at a time and often subjected to torture. Under Israeli law, administrative detainees can be imprisoned for 6 months, but these 6-month terms can be repeatedly extended often stretching out for many years. Ex-prisoners include some 40% of the male Palestinian population, who report that torture is routinely inflicted.
When Israeli forces intrude upon Palestinian lands and properties to seize and imprison Palestinians, these are called "arrests." When Palestinians intrude into Israel and seize an Israeli soldier such as Gilad Shalit, it is called a "kidnapping." It is ludicrous to compare the occasional capture of an invading or occupying Israeli soldier with the illegal arrests and detentions of thousands of Palestinians, most of whom were lawfully protesting or resisting the occupation of their land. And moreover, only the Israeli victim is reported in the U.S. press.
A comprehensive description of Palestinian prisoners and their treatment can be found on the website of Addameer, the Palestinian Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association. For a comprehensive list of responsibilities and limitations of an occupying power under international law that Israel has regularly and flagrantly violated, see Geneva Convention on a later page.
Prime Minister Sharon (above left) was consistently accused of inflicting or permitting such human rights violations. He commanded the "101" unit in 1953 that committed the Qibya massacre, was close to Israeli massacres in the Sinai as a commander in the 1956 and 1967 wars without stopping or censuring them, and as Defense Minister in 1982 was held responsible for the Sabra and Shatila massacres of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon.
Extrajudicial assassinations of Palestinian leaders by F-16 launched missiles and aerial drones has occurred routinely as a method of eliminating potentially troublesome Palestinian leadership. Israeli soldiers continuously murder and maim Palestinian protestors pursuing Gandhian methods of non-violent resistance. An outstanding Israeli NGO, B'Tselem, has recorded the deaths of 1,437 Palestinian children from the beginning of the Second Intifada in September 2000 through June 2009, most by gunshot and many by gunshot to the head, clearly targeted by Israeli snipers (see www.rememberthesechildren.org). These crimes are almost always committed with complete impunity.
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