Israeli authorities additionally destroyed no less than 729 Palestinian buildings – together with 273 houses – final 12 months, NGO says.
Israeli safety forces dedicated “heinous killings” all through 2020, taking pictures useless no less than 27 Palestinians throughout occupied Palestinian territories and in Israel, based on Israeli rights group B’Tselem.
“Over the course of 2020, Israeli safety forces killed 27 Palestinians, seven of them minors: one within the Gaza Strip, 23 within the West Financial institution [including East Jerusalem] and three inside Israel,” B’Tselem mentioned on Monday.
In no less than 11 of the 16 killings investigated by B’Tselem within the occupied West Financial institution, the Palestinians “posed no menace to the lives of the forces” or some other particular person on the time they had been shot.
Among the examples highlighted within the report included the killing of Iyad Hallaq, a 32-year-old autistic Palestinian man who attended and labored at a faculty for individuals with particular wants in occupied East Jerusalem’s Outdated Metropolis.
On the time, Israeli officers mentioned they suspected Hallaq was carrying a weapon and commenced chasing him when he panicked and commenced to run.
He was shot useless as he hid behind a dumpster, just some metres from his faculty.
Hallaq’s father instructed Al Jazeera in June his son had the psychological capability of an eight-year-old and no understanding of the harmful actuality of life underneath occupation.
“For years, Israel has been implementing a reckless, illegal open-fire coverage within the West Financial institution. This coverage is absolutely backed by the federal government, the army and the courts, in utter indifference to the predictable deadly outcomes,” B’Tselem mentioned.
Within the uncommon occasion through which members of the Israeli forces are indicted for killing Palestinians, the costs and sentences “don’t replicate the gravity of the offenses”, the group added.
Over the course of 2020, amid the raging coronavirus pandemic, Israeli authorities additionally destroyed no less than 729 Palestinian buildings, together with houses and non-residential buildings.
In 2020, the group mentioned, extra Palestinians misplaced their houses within the West Financial institution and East Jerusalem than in yearly since 2016.
“In whole, Israel demolished 273 houses in 2020, leaving 1,006 Palestinians – 519 of them minors – homeless,” B’Tselem mentioned.
“In 2020, Israel additionally demolished 456 non-residential buildings and infrastructure amenities. This consists of humanitarian infrastructure similar to water cisterns and pipes or energy grids, that are important to sustaining well being and sanitation, notably essential right now.”
The group mentioned it documented 248 assaults carried out by unlawful Israeli settlers in opposition to Palestinians within the West Financial institution final 12 months.
The assaults ranged from bodily assaults to concentrating on farmers or their properties, which “couldn’t happen with out the sweeping help supplied by the state”.