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By Amnesty
International
The spiraling violence
and killings in Israel and the occupied territories in the past
four and a half years has brought untold suffering to the
Palestinian and Israeli civilian population. More than 3,200
Palestinians, including more than 600 children and more than 150
women have been killed by Israeli forces, and more than 1,000 I
Israelis, including more than 100 children and some 200 women were
killed by Palestinian armed groups. Most of the victims were
unarmed civilians who were not taking part in any armed
confrontations. Thousands more have been injured, many of them
maimed for life. Amnesty International has repeatedly condemned
and campaigned against the killings of civilians by both sides.
Since the beginning of the Intifada (The Palestinian uprising
against Israeli Occupation), there has been an increased
militarization of the conflict. From the first days the Israeli
army abandoned policing and law enforcement tactics and adopted
military measures generally used in armed conflict, routinely
using excessive and disproportionate force against civilians,
including frequent air-strikes and tank shelling in densely
populated Palestinian residential areas large scale destruction of
Palestinian homes, land and infrastructure and the imposition of
military blockades and prolonged curfews which kept the
Palestinian population imprisoned in their homes. Armed
Palestinian attacks against Israeli civilians, which were sporadic
before the Intifada, become a frequent occurrence, including
suicide bombings, shootings and other attacks on buses, cafes and
public places.
However, the endless cycle of killings is not the only human
rights scandal. The increased militarization of the conflict has
resulted in a dramatic deterioration of the human rights situation
in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with unprecedented levels of
poverty, unemployment, and health problems. Palestinian women have
borne the brunt of the suffering but their blight has been largely
ignored. The multiple violations committed by Israeli forces in
the occupied territories have had grave and long-term consequences
for the Palestinian population and a particularly negative impact
on women (as well as children and other vulnerable sectors of
Palestinian society), compounding the pressures and constraints to
which Palestinian women are subject in the traditional Palestinian
patriarchal society.
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