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Human rights organizations criticize Palestinians and Israelis for violence
2002-264-1
11/20/2002
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[Episcopal News Service]
Two international human rights organizations have strongly criticized the use of violence on both sides of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
The New York-based Human Rights Watch charged that Palestinians who order and dispatch suicide bombers are guilty of war crimes and should be brought to justice. At the same time, a report from Amnesty International charged that Israel committed war crimes during a military offensive in the West Bank cities of Jenin and Nablus earlier this year.
The Human Rights Watch report said that Palestinian Authority (PA) leader Yasser Arafat bears 'significant political responsibility' for the 'repeated deliberate killing' of Israeli civilians in the last two years of the current intifada. 'The scale and systematic nature of these attacks in 2001 and 2002 meet the definition of a crime against humanity,' the report said. 'When these suicide bombings take place in the context of violence that amounts to armed conflict, they are also war crimes.'
The report also charges that Arafat and the PA leadership have failed to prevent the suicide bombings, or arrest terrorists, and have not worked to defuse the elements that encourage attacks on Israeli civilians.
Amnesty International's report says that Israel carried out 'unlawful killings, torture and ill-treatment of prisoners, wanton destruction of hundreds of homes,' adding that 'Israeli authorities have failed in their responsibility to bring to justice the perpetrators of serious human rights violations.' The organization has also accused Palestinian suicide bombers of crimes against humanity.
Israel launched its offensive on the West Bank March 29 after a Palestinian suicide bomber killed 29 Israelis. Jenin was the site of heavy fighting with the death of 52 Palestinians and 23 Israeli soldiers. Amnesty also said that the Israeli army had failed to 'impartially and thoroughly' investigate events at the Jenin refugee camp. The United Nations, which did conduct an investigation, ruled that there was no evidence of a massacre at the camp.
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