Yesh Din
Volunteers for Human Rights
91% of Investigations into Offenses Committed by Israelis against Palestinians were Closed without Serving Indictments
Only 3% of investigations of Property Offenses led to Indictments. The majority of cases involving harm to Palestinians or their property by Israeli civilians in the West Bank were closed based on failures by the investigators in finding suspects and evidence.
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Yesh Din-Volunteers for Human Rights releases updated data on its monitoring of investigations by the SJ (Samaria and Judea, or West Bank) Police District of offenses committed against Palestinians.
The data presents the results of the investigation of 760 cases handled by the SJ Police District based on complaints filed by Palestinian residents of the West Bank for offenses committed by Israeli civilians against them and their property.
The figures show that only 7.5% of investigations of offenses committed by Israelis against Palestinians in the West Bank lead to indictments. The vast majority of investigations – nearly 90 percent – end in the closure of investigations on grounds that indicate a failure of the investigation ("perpetrator unknown", "insufficient evidence").
A high rate of failure is seen particularly in investigations of property offenses – 97% of these cases are closed on grounds that indicate failures by the investigators in investigating them.
The significance of the data is that the State of Israel still fails to uphold its duty to set up an effective mechanism for enforcing the law on Israeli civilians who commit crimes – some of which are extremely egregious – against Palestinian civilians in the territories under military occupation.
According to Ziv Stahl of Yesh Din's Research Department, "Every year Yesh Din publishes data that reveal the deeply embedded and continuous failure to enforce the law on Israeli civilians who commit offenses against Palestinian residents of the occupied territories. It is outrageous and disappointing that despite what is known to all, the State has not taken the necessary actions to reform the area of law enforcement in the West Bank and to tilt the scales in favor of what is currently the dying rule of law".
Haim Erlich, General Director of Yesh Din, stated that "the figures clearly demonstration that the West Bank a lawless land. The continued negligence by the law enforcement systems in the SJ District in practice encourages the criminals, and the clashes over the last several days attest to that. After they had chopped down trees, set fire to mosques and harmed the bodies and property of their Palestinian neighbors, the Price Tag rioters were free to attack IDF soldiers, and we should not be surprised by this deterioration. In a place without human rights for the occupied civilian population, there are no human rights for anyone".
The data are published within the framework of a multi-year Yesh Din project aiming to strengthen the enforcement of the law on Israeli civilians involved in criminal offenses against Palestinians and their property in the occupied territories. Since 2005 Yesh Din has represented victims of crimes committed by Israeli civilians against Palestinians before the law enforcement bodies. Among other things, this work enables the organization to monitor the results of these investigations conducted by the SJ District.
Yesh Din's monitoring is the sole source of the figures on the results of the investigations of offenses committed by Israeli civilians against Palestinians, since not a single Israeli official body maintains data on the investigation of these offenses or their results.
Read full monitoring data
The data presents the results of the investigation of 760 cases handled by the SJ Police District based on complaints filed by Palestinian residents of the West Bank for offenses committed by Israeli civilians against them and their property.
The figures show that only 7.5% of investigations of offenses committed by Israelis against Palestinians in the West Bank lead to indictments. The vast majority of investigations – nearly 90 percent – end in the closure of investigations on grounds that indicate a failure of the investigation ("perpetrator unknown", "insufficient evidence").
A high rate of failure is seen particularly in investigations of property offenses – 97% of these cases are closed on grounds that indicate failures by the investigators in investigating them.
The significance of the data is that the State of Israel still fails to uphold its duty to set up an effective mechanism for enforcing the law on Israeli civilians who commit crimes – some of which are extremely egregious – against Palestinian civilians in the territories under military occupation.
According to Ziv Stahl of Yesh Din's Research Department, "Every year Yesh Din publishes data that reveal the deeply embedded and continuous failure to enforce the law on Israeli civilians who commit offenses against Palestinian residents of the occupied territories. It is outrageous and disappointing that despite what is known to all, the State has not taken the necessary actions to reform the area of law enforcement in the West Bank and to tilt the scales in favor of what is currently the dying rule of law".
Haim Erlich, General Director of Yesh Din, stated that "the figures clearly demonstration that the West Bank a lawless land. The continued negligence by the law enforcement systems in the SJ District in practice encourages the criminals, and the clashes over the last several days attest to that. After they had chopped down trees, set fire to mosques and harmed the bodies and property of their Palestinian neighbors, the Price Tag rioters were free to attack IDF soldiers, and we should not be surprised by this deterioration. In a place without human rights for the occupied civilian population, there are no human rights for anyone".
The data are published within the framework of a multi-year Yesh Din project aiming to strengthen the enforcement of the law on Israeli civilians involved in criminal offenses against Palestinians and their property in the occupied territories. Since 2005 Yesh Din has represented victims of crimes committed by Israeli civilians against Palestinians before the law enforcement bodies. Among other things, this work enables the organization to monitor the results of these investigations conducted by the SJ District.
Yesh Din's monitoring is the sole source of the figures on the results of the investigations of offenses committed by Israeli civilians against Palestinians, since not a single Israeli official body maintains data on the investigation of these offenses or their results.
Read full monitoring data