By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON, Oct 18 2000 (IPS)

Palestinian complaints that Israeli police and the Israel Defence Force (IDF) have used excessive force in clashes against Palestinian demonstrators over the past two and a half weeks are largely justified, according to a new report issued by the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) Tuesday.

The rights group also charges that Palestinian police have failed to take strong action to prevent armed Palestinians from shooting at the IDF from positions where civilians were endangered by the Israeli response.

In addition, each side has attacked ambulances and medical personnel identified with the other, according to the report. In several cases, Israeli settlers attacked Palestinian ambulances in the presence of IDF officers who did nothing to stop them, according to the report.

The report, whose main findings are expected to be echoed in a similar report to be issued by Amnesty International in London Wednesday, calls for UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, former Irish president Mary Robinson, to set up an experts panel to conduct an impartial investigation into rights abuses committed by both sides in the conflict.

“This body should comprise internationally recognised law enforcement and human rights experts,” according to Hanni Megally, the head of HRW’s Middle East section. “To be most credible and effective, its members should be appointed not by governments directly, but by the High Commissioner.”

The report comes amid continuing clashes between Palestinian protestors and the IDF, despite a new agreement mediated by US President Bill Clinton and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak between the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak to halt the violence that has killed more than 100 people, almost all of them Palestinians, since the end of September. Another 3,500 Palestinians have been injured in the clashes.

The accord, reached after a day and a half of talks at the Egyptian resort of Sharm El-Sheikh, reportedly calls for Israel to end its closure of the West Bank and Gaza Strip and withdraw its forces from Palestinian- run areas.

It also calls for the Palestinian police to do more to prevent demonstrations from turning violent and for top leaders, including Arafat, to appeal publicly for calm.

In addition, Barak and Arafat, who reportedly did not even shake hands during the meeting, agreed to a US proposal for a trilateral investigation of the causes of the violence, the results of which will be submitted to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Arafat had previously demanded that such an investigation be carried out by the United Nations.

Whether the accord is fully carried out, however, remains to be seen. Marwan Barghouthi, who heads the militia wing of Fatah, Arafat’s political party, reportedly denounced the summit as a failure and vowed to continue the uprising. In recent days, US officials and independent analysts here have cast doubt on Arafat’s control of Palestinian demonstrators and even of his police.

Human rights groups, including HRW and Amnesty, have put out a series of statements over the past 18 days condemning the violence on both sides.

But the new report is the first on-site investigation by a delegation since the violence first broke out following the heavily militarised visit to Haram al Sharif, or Temple Mount, in East Jerusalem by the right-wing Israeli opposition leader, Ariel Sharon. The site is sacred to both Jews and Muslims and its future status had emerged as a major sticking point in peace negotiations between the two sides.

The delegation investigated several clashes which took place during the 10 days of the violence, including one in the Israeli town of Um al-Fahm where four Palestinian Israelis were killed by Israeli police; a second where IDF forces clashed in the West Bank town of al-Bireh-Ramallah; and two more which took place at Netzarim Junction in the Gaza Strip.

Under international standards, firearms may be used only in “self- defence or defence of others against the imminent threat of death or serious injury”. Even then, law-enforcement officials must “exercise restraint in such use and act in proportion to the seriousness of the offence and the legitimate objective to be achieved”.

But the delegation found that Israeli security forces had used lethal force repeatedly in situations where demonstrators posed no threat of death or serious injury to them or to others.

That appeared to be the case in the killing of Muhammad Jamal Muhammad al-Dirra, the 12-year-old boy who was shot by the IDF while cowering against a wall with his father at the Netzarim Junction in Gaza Sep. 30, according to HRW. Eyewitnesses told HRW that no shots had been fired from the Palestinian side for at least 45 minutes when the boy was shot.

It said the incident was an example of indiscriminate and illegal use of force by the IDF, because its forces were not in any immediate threat of death or serious injury at the time.

In situations where Palestinians did fire on the Israeli forces, according to the report, the IDF showed “a troubling proclivity to resort to indiscriminate lethal force in response”.

Moreover, the report notes as well that the IDF has used medium- calibre munitions with devastating impact against unarmed demonstrators. Such projectiles are ordinarily reserved for penetrating concrete and other hard surfaces and are not appropriate for crowd-control and law- enforcement situations, according to the report.

The report also criticises what it called “a disturbing pattern of serious violations of medical neutrality” by the IDF, including repeated use of lethal force against Palestinian ambulances, medical personnel, field hospitals and clinics engaged in treating or evacuating injured civilians.

Between Sep. 29 and Oct. 16, one Palestinian Red Crescent Society emergency medical technician has been killed, and 10n more hit by IDF live fire while evacuating wounded civilians in clashes, according to the report.

HRW also investigated two cases, one on the West Bank and the other in Gaza, where armed civilians opened fire on IDF soldiers or positions, and found that the Palestinian police failed to prevent such attacks.

At Netzarim Junction, where clashes took place over several days, the police failed to block cars manned by armed civilians from driving to the Junction and firing their weapons. As crowds grew larger, according to the report, they would taunt the police for not responding to Israeli fire; in some instances, individual members of the police force did indeed fire back, the report said.

In a subsequent interview with HRW, the Palestinian head of security for Gaza, said that in the first days at Netzarim Junction, the police tried to intervene between the demonstrators and the IDF, with only limited success, and that the police themselves came under fire from the IDF and sustained casualties, some of them fatal.

Requests for interviews with senior IDF and Israeli police officers were denied, according to HRW.

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