Israel: rights group to defend Arabs against official violations

Palestinian Israeli citizens and Israelis stage a protest march with coffins, against the government’s indifference on the increase in crime rates amongst Palestinian Israeli citizens at Habima Square in Tel Aviv, Israel on 06 August 2023 [Mostafa Alkharouf – Anadolu Agency]

The Legal Centre for Arab Minority Rights in Israel (Adalah) and the High Follow-up Committee for Arab Citizens of Israel declared on Wednesday that they will seek protection for Arab Palestinian citizens of Israel against official violations. Both said that they will go to the UN and other international bodies in light of an escalation in Israel’s deadly policies against its non-Jewish citizens.

Such policies include the advancement of police authorisation to use live ammunition against Arab protesters, and deliberate inaction to address crime in Arab communities. At least 194 Palestinians have been murdered in Israel since the beginning of this year.

Earlier on Monday, Israeli Kan Channel 11 reported that the police and the Ministry of National Security were seeking to authorise the use of live ammunition against protesters who, for example, block roads during national emergencies. Lessons have been learnt, it is said, from events in Israel during the apartheid state’s military offensive against Gaza in May 2021.

READ: Israel: police want to use live ammunition against Palestinian protesters

As documented extensively by Adalah, Palestinian citizens faced severe repression and human rights violations at the hands of Israeli police during that offensive.

Adalah’s General Director, Hassan Jabareen, who represented the victims’ families and the Arab leadership before the Or Commission twenty years ago, commented: “Police officers already systematically violate the existing police regulations that authorise the use of live ammunition in cases of imminent threat with blanket impunity. Now, this new measure is designed to legitimise the killing of Palestinians even when they clearly do not pose any danger.”

This, he added, comes at a time when the state is intensifying its deliberate policy of neglect and inaction in regard to the unprecedented rise in deadly crime within Palestinian communities. “It is a result of decades of discrimination and exclusion. The urgent intervention of international bodies is now imperative, as it has been abundantly demonstrated that Israel’s government does not only disregard the lives of Arabs, but it also actively seeks to promote a deadly policy against them.”

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