Zero justice: Not one charge in over 100 cases against Israeli soldiers for attacking Palestinians in 2012

The Israeli legal advocacy group Yesh Din has found that out of 103 investigations opened in 2012 into alleged offenses committed by Israeli soldiers in the occupied territories against Palestinians and their property, not a single one has so far resulted in any charges.

From 2009-2011, Yesh Din says in its latest report, just 2.62 percent of investigations led to charges.
The figure from 2012 represents a deterioration in the already shocking lack of justice for Palestinians living under Israeli military tyranny.

From 2005-11, Yesh Din found previously, 94 percent of criminal investigations launched by the Israeli army’s criminal investigation division against soldiers suspected of criminal violent activity against Palestinians and their property were closed without any indictments.

Yesh Din has also said that in the rare cases where charges are filed and convictions obtained, punishments are usually no more than a slap on the wrist.

Killing with impunity continues

So far in 2013, at least five Palestinians have been shot dead by Israeli occupation forces including Samir Awad, 16, in the village of Budrus, whom witnesses say was executed in an Israeli army ambush.

On 23 January, Lubna Hanash, a young Palestinian woman and university student was shot dead by Israeli occupation forces as she walked with a friend, near Arroub refugee camp near Bethlehem.

That same day, Salih al-Amarin, 15, died of gunshot wounds inflicted by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem the previous week.

And in December, Muhammad al-Salaymeh, a Hebron teen, was shot dead on his 17th birthday in unexplained circumstances. Claims by the Israeli soldier who shot him that Muhammad had brandished a weapon and taken another soldier hostage, were proven false by video of the incident.

Occupier’s victims are always guilty

While no credible investigations, let alone accountability, are expected in any of these cases, the occupation regime’s sick joke of a “justice” system continues its harsh crackdown on its victims.

In 2011, Haaretz revealed that almost 100 percent (99.74 percent to be precise) of cases against Palestinians brought before Israel’s kangaroo “military courts” – where the prosecutors and judges are officers of the occupation army – result in convictions.

This week Haaretz revealed that Israeli occupation “police” in Jerusalem were cracking down even harder on victims of the occupation in an attempt to break their resistance to home demolitions to make way for more Jewish-only colonial settlements.

Original Article
Source: electronicintifada.net
Author: Ali Abunimah