Most Palestinians Killed in Israeli Raids were Civilians, Amnesty Says
JERUSALEM -More than 320 civilians were among a threefold increase in the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli security forces last year, according to Amnesty International. The human rights group’s 2007 report says that over half of the more than 650 Palestinians killed in 2006 were civilians, 120 of them children and young people under 18. Amnesty defines civilians, “as people that are reasonably supposed never to have been involved in armed operations”.
While Amnesty said that dozens of Palestinians were killed in the West Bank it pointed out that most of the increase resulted from aerial and artillery bombardments in Gaza after the abduction of the Israeli corporal Gilad Shalit in late June and in response to increased Qassam rocket fire on Israel. These included, for example, the shelling of a house in the northern town of Beit Hanoun which killed 17 members of the Athamneh family. 
The report said 21 Israeli civilians were killed by Palestinians militants in the same year, the lowest figure since the beginning of the second intifada in 2000.
Amnesty also accused soldiers and settlers of committing “serious human rights abuses, including unlawful killings against Palestinians mostly with impunity”. Although it said settler attacks on farmers in the West Bank had decreased, they were continuing.
It said that, at times, security forces were present at such incidents and did not intervene. It also accused the security forces of often only opening investigations after the cases had been highlighted by journalists and human rights groups.
The Israeli military said yesterday it did its utmost “to avoid harming innocent people… in contrast to terror organisations that do their utmost to harm innocent civilians”.
It rejected what it called “the attempt to equate terror organisations” with a “democratic state that acts within the confines of the law to exercise its right to defend itself, its sovereign territory, and civilians against terror organisations”.
Israeli troops launched a rare raid into the southern Gaza Strip early yesterday, briefly detaining seven Palestinians on the outskirts of Khan Yunis. The detainees were later released. Palestinian medics said that seven people, including a pregnant woman and a teenage boy, had been injured in two further air strikes on suspected Gaza militants yesterday.
© 2007 Independent News and Media Limited
Not just in Palestine. More than half of all deaths in recent wars have been innocent civilians.
This is why war is not the answer for making changes in the world. Too bad the United States of America is setting a poor example by using war to make changes in the Middle East.
Exactly why I have been saying to any who will listen that war is no solution to anything. There is no way to prevent the indiscriminant killing that always occurs when using conventional or even more lethal weapons.
War is a crime. Nothing more nothing less. Every study ever done on any war has shown that the first victims are always the innocent, the women and children of any area under attack. War is the complete break down of communication between groups and an exercise in attempting to eliminate those people who are not wanting to grant others dominion over them. War creates the environment where one group sees another as less than human. There are no spiritual teachings which condone warfare either.
It takes little skill or thought to bludgeon someone else while it takes much critical thinking and consideration of others to work out problems and find mutually beneficial solutions. Each course of action requires a choice.
Only primitive wars kill mostly combatants. Modern wars by civilized people kill mostly innocents.
We are truly proud of our progress!
Isreal deserves every bad things coming their way. They never left Gaza, as much as they claim they did. They controlled the airspace, water, commerce, border, etc, etc….Gaza was a virtual jail. They are using this as an excuse further destabilize the country and continue their brutal apartheid occupation. Listening to the Israel’s media rep when asked about this is quite hilarious as she keep repeating her script like a trained chimp.
Israle does not want peace. They want all of Palestine and then more. They have said as much if people just listen carefully to their leaders. How many heard Ehud say that they were redifining Israel’s border when their last terrorist action against Lebanon was going on last year?
Yes, I agree. On behalf of all of the tolerant and enlightened ones on this sight, I agree, I agree, I agree.
The Muslims are right!!!I agree with everyone who authors and runs this sight. The Muslims are sooo right!!
The Palestinians, Hamas, Hizbullaha and all of the enlightened freedom loving muslims who have declared JIHAD against the USA and Israel have threatened to kill all jews and destroy Israel and I agree with all of you on this sight-they are right. Israel finds itself agreeing to much with the white american european christian values- WHICH ARE FUNDAMENTALLY WRONG!! Yes, of course, when the muslims specifically target civilians and children in Israel, (as in the Beslan school massacre)
most of you who are enlightened are entitled to the orgasmic euphoria you receive when Israeli civilians are killed.
Please send the Muslims the message of tolerance- Remember they are right. White American European christian values are wrong. Muslims do not tolerate the white american european christian values and therefore they agree with all of us on this sight and are right.
Let’s all hope the muslims continue to specifically target Israeli children. Our leaders, Al Franken, Pelosi, AL Gore and Rosie O’Donnell are with everybody on this point. Do not let Israel stop this targeting of children in their country. They shoudl sacrifice their innocents as the white liberal majority insist white people be sacrificed in this country like the 6 blacks did in Knoxville earlier this year when they beat, raped, sodomized, burned, tortured and killed a young white couple. After reading items on this sight for a year, I will never understand why these blacks are being prosecuted. I am glad this sight supports the sacrifice of innocents whose ancestors were wrong!!!Thank you for your sight!! Praise the tolerant!! Praise the enlightened!!!!Praise the muslims!!!
No matter who they are-whenever anyone, whether a nation or an individual sheds innocent blood for their cause, their cause is forever discredited.
FOREVER.
Yellow Horse
“It rejected what it called “the attempt to equate terror organisations” with a “democratic state that acts within the confines of the law to exercise its right to defend itself, its sovereign territory, and civilians against terror organisations”.
Israel is not a “democratic” state. It is a state for the Jewish people and that was proclaimed by their Supreme Court.
Apparently Ghaza and the West Bank are Israeli sovereign terrority - and Israel says it is for peace!
The Palestinians apparently must give up and surrender the remaining part of their land otherwise they will be systematically destroyed as a society as Palestinians have no right to defend themselves, according to Israelis.
It is convenient for Israelis to say they don’t target civilians despite the fact most of those killed or injured are civilians. A subjective justification of state terrorism at least.
Tolerancenow is very clever. He/she/it is trying “articulate” what liberals supposedly think.
“Al Franken, Pelosi, AL Gore and Rosie O’Donnell are with everybody on this point.”
Yeah, as if those guys are dangerous left-wing fanatic hellbent on destroying your way of life. Please.
Actually, I think at least most of the people you hold up as “examples” of the “evil” left are probably pro-Israel.
Good post selranospm. I just hope you don’t get branded an anti-semite for it. Anyone who is critical of Israel seems to be equated with Hitler.
odd. when you occupy someone else’s land, you’re a soldier, but when you fight off an occupier/usurper; you’re a terrorist.
I guess the French Resistance in WWII and the Serbian mountain fighters who kicked Nazi-ass were terrorists too?
odd.
and don’t start on that’s it’s so bad people blowing themselves up, we all know it’s bad.
but if the Palestinians had an army with tanks and F15’s and gunship-helicopters, you could count on em to use those to fight back, not some religiously insane nutcase with C4 strapped to his belly.
unfortunately they haven’t got the tanks, F15’s andwhatnots, so they gotta improvise…..
Terrorism is the war of the poor, war is the terrorism of the rich.
for the dead, there’s no difference if they’re killed by a suicide bomber or a clusterbomb or a helicoper gunship. they’re dead, is all.
“democratic state that acts within the confines of the law to exercise its right to defend itself, its sovereign territory, and civilians against terror organisations”.
But we are talking about Israel, not some democratic state defending itself and its territory. No one ever seriously claimed that Israel is using legal tactics to encroach on Palestinian territory. Not only are they bombing civilian areas including power plants and hospitals, but their soldiers are deliberately killing civilian women and children. This has been documented with pictures. To find out what the Israelis have been doing in the occupied territories of the West Bank, check the daily reports from the Mennonite Central Committee that sponsors the peace groups that are there to monitor activity.
The question has been raised about what Israel should do about Moslem insurgents who are defending their territory and also, by the way, a democratically elected government. The obvious answer is to accept the peace offer that they have been given on several occasions from the combined Arab world. Namely, their safety will be guaranteed if they return to the borders that they were given originally and stop their wars of conquest. Why is it so difficult to understand that people object to having their land taken from them, their families killed, their homes bulldozed. their children shot, their economy destroyed, and their lives made hell?! The Israelis learned the wrong lesson from the Holocaust. They should have learned NOT to do it, but instead their takehome lesson was HOW to do it.
“It is the TERRORISTS placing the Palestinian civilians in danger by deliberately using them as human shields, and when the Israelis counter-attack, the TERRORISTS can be assured that their fellow travelers in the West will raise the cries of condemnation.”
One more time, Israel alone is responsible for what it orders its military to do. It is most definitely not the Palestinians who select civilians to serve as human shields, the civilians are the victims of Israeli aircraft firing into the densely populated area of Gaza. The Israeli Defense Forces are the only ones accused, by their own government, of using Palestinians as human shields when those forces go house to house in the territories, with a Palestinian out front to absorb any bullets people inside might fire against the IDF. Those are indeed human shields.
What should Israel do? Quit beating around the bush and negotiate the peace agreements that will create an independent Palestinian State along the 1967 border with East Jerusalem as their capital. And meanwhile quit expanding settlements in territories that do not belong to Israel. That is the cause of the problem and the Palestinian’s cause is a JUST CAUSE.