Centre of the Storm: A Case Study of Human Rights Abuses in Hebron District

The West Bank city of Hebron, long a flashpoint of conflict between Palestinians and Israelis, has been the scene of widespread human rights abuses since the renewal of violent clashes on September 29, 2000-an uprising that Palestinians commonly refer to as the Al-Aqsa Intifada. Hebron is the only major Palestinian city in the West Bank that remains in substantial measure under the direct control of the Israeli Defense Force (IDF). The city is home to about 120,000 Palestinians. It is also the only Palestinian city other than East Jerusalem with a substantial presence of Israeli settlers: some 500 live in the city centre and some 7,000 others on the edge of the city. This report sets out the obligations of the parties to the conflict and documents human rights violations and violations of international humanitarian law committed by Israelis and Palestinians in Hebron and the surrounding vicinity since late September 2000. To gather information for this report, Human Rights Watch researchers travelled to Hebron for a two week period in November 2000, and returned for an additional three weeks of research in February 2001. More than one hundred and eighty in-depth interviews were conducted with victims and witnesses to human rights abuses, Israeli and Palestinian officials, ambulance drivers, teachers, journalists, international observers, Israeli settler representatives, and representatives from local Israeli and Palestinian human rights groups. Human Rights Watch researchers visited the scene of many of the violations documented in this report, augmenting eyewitness testimonies with physical observations to the extent possible. The crisis in Hebron, as in the rest of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, has at its core a disregard for human rights and international humanitarian law. Our research found serious and extensive human rights abuses in Hebron district, including excessive use of force by IDF soldiers against unarmed Palestinian demonstrators; unlawful killings by IDF soldiers; unacknowledged assassinations of suspected Palestinian militants; attacks by Palestinian gunmen directed against Israeli civilians living in settlements and in circumstances that have placed Palestinian civilians at grave risk from Israeli response fire; disproportionate IDF gunfire in response to Palestinian attacks; extensive abuses by Israeli settlers against Palestinian civilians and the lack of an IDF response to such abuses; and "closure" measures imposed by the IDF on the Palestinian community that amount to collective punishment. Both Israeli and Palestinian authorities have failed to take the necessary steps to stop the security forces under their control from committing abuses, and have also failed to adequately investigate and punish abuses committed by security forces and civilians in areas under their control.