Report blasts Israeli army

JERUSALEM: Ninety percent of the probes launched by the Israeli army since 2000 into suspected offences against Palestinians closed without any indictment, an Israeli human rights group said on Tuesday.
According to the Yesh Din report, the criminal offences include "illegal shooting causing the death and injury of civilians, violence and abuse, intentional damage to property, looting, taking bribes."
The number of investigations launched by the military police into the killing and wounding of civilians not involved in combat "is especially low considering the number of casualties," the report said. The 239 probes opened between September 2000 to September 2007 led to only 16 convictions, a rate of less than seven percent, the report said.
"The low number of investigations opened and the minute number of indictments served reveal the IDF's (Israeli Defence Force's) de facto derogation of its duty to protect the Palestinian population against offences committed by soldiers," Yesh Din legal advisor Michael Sfard said in a statement.
This "inevitably leads to a rise in the number and severity of the offenses committed by them," Sfard said. There was no immediate reaction from the army to the report.
A recent army-commissioned survey showed that one in four Israeli troops serving at the hundreds of checkpoints across the occupied West Bank has engaged in or witnessed abuse of Palestinians, including humilitations and gratuitous delays.