By NNN-WAFA,
Jerusalem : An Israeli human rights group has said only 6 per cent of probes into offences allegedly committed by Israeli soldiers against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank yield indictments.
The report was issued by the Yesh Din human rights group as the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) vowed to investigate the death of a 12-year-old Palestinian boy shot and killed by Israeli soldiers during a protest on Tuesday against Israel’s Apartheid Wall in the West Bank.
Of a total of 1,246 investigations by the IOF into suspected offences against Palestinians or Palestinian property between 2000 and 2007, only 76 ended in indictments, the Yesh Din said.
A total of 132 people were charged, of whom 110 were found guilty of various offences, four were acquitted, eight indictments were annulled and the trials of 10 others are still underway, the report said.
“The figures on the low number of investigations and the minute number of indictments filed reveal that the army is shirking its duty to protect the civilian Palestinian population from offences committed by its soldiers,” Yesh Din’s legal advisor Michael Sfadi said in a statement Wednesday.
According to figures provided to the Yesh Din by the IOF, only a few of the investigations followed complaints from within army ranks.
Out of 152 probes launched in 2006, only 14, or 9 per cent, were based on complaints filed within the IOF, the report said. In 2007, 7 per cent of the investigations emanated from the IOF.
“The minute number of indictments launched following reports by commanders to military police brings to light the army’s conspiracy of silence over offences against Palestinians,” Sfadi said.