Amnesty says some Israeli West Bank killings may be war crimes

Israeli forces are using excessive, reckless violence in the occupied West Bank, killing dozens of Palestinians over the past three years in what might constitute a war crime, Amnesty International said on Thursday.

In a report entitled "Trigger Happy", the human rights group accused Israel of allowing its soldiers to act with virtual impunity and urged an independent review of the deaths.

The Israeli army dismissed the allegations, saying security forces had seen a "substantial increase" in Palestinian violence and that Amnesty had revealed a "complete lack of understanding" about the difficulties soldiers faced.

According to U.N. data, 45 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank between 2011-2013, including six children. Amnesty said it had documented the deaths of 25 civilians during this period, all but three of whom died last year.

"The report presents a body of evidence that shows a harrowing pattern of unlawful killings and unwarranted injuries of Palestinian civilians by Israeli forces in the West Bank," said Philip Luther, director of the Middle East and North Africa programme at Amnesty International.

Amnesty said that in none of the cases it reviewed did the Palestinians appear to be posing any imminent threat to life.

"In some, there is evidence that they were victims of wilful killings, which would amount to war crimes," the group said.

After a three year hiatus, Israelis and Palestinians resumed direct peace talks last July, which the Palestinians hope will give them an independent state on territory seized by Israel in the 1967 war, including the West Bank.

Although their decades-old conflict has become a low-intensity confrontation, violence still flares regularly,
with Palestinians accounting for the vast majority of casualties. 

Source: ANTARA