Settler Violence

DCIP has documented 73 settler attacks against children since January 2015.

Israeli settlements are permanent, civilian, Jewish-only communities built on Palestinian land, including privately owned, confiscated land. 

Over 600,000 Israeli citizens live in illegal Jewish-only settlements in occupied territory.

Since Israeli forces occupied the West Bank in 1967, Israeli authorities have established some 200 Jewish-only settlements that house over 600,000 Israeli citizens, according to B'Tselem. These illegal settlements are woven throughout the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, often dividing the cities, villages, and refugee camps of the around 3.1 million Palestinians who live there. Israel’s settlements in the West Bank are illegal according to international law. 

As part of this illegal settlement enterprise, Israeli authorities utilize a discriminatory housing, land, and property legal regime to justify the dispossession of Palestinian lands and the demolition of Palestinian homes and essential infrastructure, including water systems, livestock pens, and solar panels.

Stationed throughout the West Bank, Israeli soldiers, police, and private security firms protect settler populations at the expense of Palestinian civilians. Unlike Israeli civilians living across the Green Line, Israel’s pre-1967 boundary with the West Bank, many settlers carry government-issued firearms. In this hyper-militarized environment, disproportionate physical and psychological violence is inflicted on Palestinian children. 

Settler attacks usually involve groups of Israeli settlers throwing stones and other objects at Palestinians, including children, vandalizing and destroying property including homes, vehicles, churches, mosques, schools, and agricultural land and property, including olive groves and animals. Physical beatings are also common.

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In May 2020, an Israeli court found an Israeli settler, Amiram Ben-Uleil, 25, guilty of the racially motivated murder of a Palestinian toddler and his parents. In the early hours of July 31, 2015, Ben-Uleil and another masked man threw firebombs into the home of 18-month old Ali Dawabsheh, four-year-old Ahmad, and their parents, Saad and Riham, in the northern occupied West Bank village of Duma. Only Ahmad, who sustained burns to over 60 percent of his body, survived.

Under Article 4 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which applies to situations of armed conflict, including occupation, Israel has an obligation to protect Palestinian civilians. Despite this, Israeli soldiers frequently fail to protect Palestinians from settler attacks, and have even participated in some cases, settlements are well-protected by Israeli soldiers and guards.

Israeli authorities consistently fail to adequately investigate complaints filed with them against settlers. According to Israeli human rights group Yesh Din, between 2005-2019, 82 percent of investigative files on ideological crimes against Palestinians were closed due to police failures.

Soldier Violence

At the end of 2020, 781 Palestinian children have been killed by Israeli military and police forces, settlers, and private security guards since 2011. 

Israeli military and paramilitary police forces deployed throughout the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, regularly subject Palestinian children to physical and psychological violence, both targeted and indiscriminate, including by lethal and non-lethal munitions, physical assault, and torture. 

In the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, Israeli soldiers often kill Palestinian children in the context of military incursions and demonstrations. Soldiers likewise frequently injure children at demonstrations where Israeli forces deploy crowd-control weapons such as rubber-coated metal bullets and tear gas to disperse protestors. 

Between 2015 and 2019, DCIP confirmed Israeli forces and settlers killed at least 159 Palestinian children in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, including at least 134 Palestinian children killed by Israeli forces with live ammunition or crowd-control weapons.

Analyzing these specific incidents and the context in which they occurred shows Israeli forces increasingly targeted Palestinian children with live ammunition to quash protests beginning in 2014.

Israeli forces shot dead 14-year-old Othman Hilles today in Gaza. Video shows he posed no direct or mortal threat at the time he was killed. A live bullet struck him in the chest and exited through his back. #GazaReturnMarch pic.twitter.com/MH62g4b1HM

— Defense for Children (@DCIPalestine) July 13, 2018

Military Offensives

Israeli military offensives often target densely populated civilian areas in the Gaza Strip resulting in high numbers of Palestinian child fatalities and injuries.

In the Gaza Strip, massive ground and aerial military offensives are responsible for the majority of child fatalities. During these offensives, Israeli forces deploy lethal and indiscriminate force in civilian areas or areas in which civilians are known to be sheltering, such as their homes or in hospitals and United Nations-run buildings. Shrapnel and debris commonly cause injuries during such military incursions and attacks.

Recommendations

The State of Israel must: 

• end its prolonged military occupation of Palestinians living in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and its closure of the Gaza Strip.

• conduct impartial and independent investigations into any alleged violations of international law by Israeli armed forces and, if there is sufficient evidence, initiate criminal proceedings against alleged perpetrators ensuring full respect for international fair trial standards; 

• cooperate with United Nations inquiries, investigations, and accountability mechanisms, including the Human Rights Council and its special procedures, and the International Criminal Court, ensuring complete access to the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, as well as to relevant personnel, documents, and other material; 

• allow international human rights organizations unrestricted access to the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip to investigate alleged violations of international law and; 

• comply with international humanitarian law and international human rights law;

• accede to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

The State of Palestine must:

• conduct impartial and independent investigations into any alleged violations of international law by Palestinian state actors and armed groups and, if there is sufficient evidence, initiate criminal proceedings against alleged perpetrators ensuring full respect for international fair trial standards; 

• cooperate with United Nations inquiries, investigations, and accountability mechanisms, including the Human Rights Council and its special procedures, and the International Criminal Court, ensuring complete access to the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, as well as to relevant personnel, documents, and other material; 

• comply with international humanitarian law and international human rights law. 

The international community must: 

• demand that Israel end its prolonged military occupation of Palestinians living in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and its closure of the Gaza Strip;

• support the International Criminal Court’s exercise of jurisdiction over the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and oppose and refrain from taking any punitive measures against the State of Palestine for engaging with the International Criminal Court; 

• support relevant United Nation inquiries, investigations, and accountability mechanisms;

• call on Israel to accede to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.