An international human rights group has accused Israel of committing abuses that constitute crimes against humanity and war crimes.

The annual report by the human rights watchdog group Amnesty International (AI) criticised the Israeli use of Palestinians as human shields, extra-judicial killings, systematic house demolitions, torture, collective punishment and closures and deliberate killing of civilians.

Some 700 Palestinians were killed by Israeli occupying forces last year alone, an increase from last year's figure of 600, ac cording to the report. 150 of these were children, many killed deliberately, most unlawfully, charged the watchdog group. >>>>>>>>>>

" Many were killed in deliberate as well as reckless shooting, shelling and bombardment of densely populated residential areas or as a result of excessive use of force," said the group .

The report also said some 109 Israelis, most of them civilians and including eight children, were killed by Palestinian armed groups in bombings, shootings and mortar attacks inside Israel and in the Occupied Territories .

But AI also accused the Israeli army of granting impunity to soldiers and settlers whose crimes against innocent Palestinians went unpunished.

" In the overwhelming majority of the thousands of cases of unlawful killings and other grave human rights violations committed by Israeli soldiers in the previous four years, no investigations were known to have been carried out," the report stated .

House demolitions

The group went on to attack Israel ' s policies of house demolitions in the southern Gaza Strip, where the Israeli army destroyed 300 homes and damaged about 270 others in a refugee camp in Rafah, leaving close to 4,000 Palestinians homeless

" Routine destruction of Palestinian homes, land and property in the West Bank and Gaza Strip was stepped up in the biggest wave of house demolitions in the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the intifada," said the report .

Amnesty further criticized Israel ' s continual expansion of the illegal separation wall and increased attacks by Jewish settlers against Palestinians and international activists, and the destruction of their property and crops .

Separation Wall

"The fence/wall and hundreds of Israeli army checkpoints and blockades throughout the Occupied Territories continued to hinder or prevent Palestinians' access to their land, their workplaces and to education, health and other crucial services," wrote the group .

The Hague-based International Court of Justice ruled unlawful the construction by Israel of a barrier inside the occupied West Bank last July .

The Israeli army declined to comment on the report .

In a chapter devoted to the Palestinian Authority, the human rights group said security officials were involved in fighting between various militant groups, which killed dozens of Palestinians .
According to AI, 18 Pa lestinians were killed in the clashes after they were suspected of collaboration with Israel .

The excuses

The report further criticized the United States for disregarding rule of law world-wide, and Israel , among others, for defying human rights in the name of "counter-terrorism".

" The USA, as the unrivalled political, military and economic hyper-power, sets the tone for governmental behaviour worldwide. When the most powerful country in the world thumbs its nose at the rule of law and human rights, it grants a license to others to commit abuse with impunity and audacity," read the report .

" From Israel to Uzbekistan, Egypt to Nepal, governments have openly defied human rights and international humanitarian law in the name of national security and 'counter-terrorism'" it concluded .

Uproar

The report has caused an uproar in Israel , with Yahad (Meretz) lawmaker Zahava Gal-On on Wednesday calling for an urgent Knesset debate following its publication .

The Israeli government, meanwhile, accused the human rights watchdog group of holding a "ve ry one-sided and extremist position".

Eimat Hurvitz, of Amnesty International's Israeli office, rejected such claims, saying that Israel is judged by the same standard as other nations .

Hurvitz told Aljazeera.net: "These are not new definitions [of war crimes], they are taken from the Nuremburg trial after the Holocaust that brought to trial Nazi leaders : crimes that are perpetrated against civilians and that are part of a systemic policy," explained Huvitz.

He give the example of the Israeli assassination of Palestinians as a policy that "takes into account civilians deaths but doesn't take them into account".

In the end, Hurvitz said definitions are not important; abiding by the report is .

" What's important is how do we in next year, what's important is to have less attacks against civilians or minimize such attacks . We hope Israel and the Palestinian Authority will read it and try to incorporate some of the issues into their actions, and not only try to defy it or explain why it is wrong."

Expert from Aljazeera.NET

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