Intifada’s Death Toll Up, Human Rights Group Reports

Israel’s Labor government has failed to live up to its election promise to improve conditions for Palestinians in the administered territories, according to an Israeli human rights group.

Slight improvements have been balanced by a sharp rise in the number of Palestinians killed by security forces this year, says B’tselem, an independent watchdog group.

Over the past five years of the intifada, Israeli forces killed 923 Palestinians, including 186 minors, Yizhar Be’er, B’tselem’s director-general, told the Israeli daily Ha’aretz.

After an initial escalation — 284 Palestinians killed in the first year of the uprising and 300 in the second — the numbers decreased steadily to 127 and 96 over the next two years. But this year, as of Dec. 6, the number has gone up again to 116.

Israeli undercover units in the army and border police were responsible for 110 of the deaths.

Palestinians also stepped up their killing of Israelis this year, slaying 12 military personnel and 12 civilians, compared to two soldiers and six civilians in 1991.

Internecine Arab bloodletting is on the rise as well, said Be’er.

The five years of the intifada have seen 675 Palestinians killed by other Palestinians, usually on suspicion of cooperating with the Israeli authorities. This year Palestinians killed 197 of their fellows, a rise from 154 last year.

The sharp increase has prompted B’tselem to prepare a report on violence in the Palestinian community, which is to be issued soon.

The current government has eased measures taken against detainees who are 16 years old or younger, and those accused of minor offenses, B’tselem acknowledges.

It said, too, that there had been a decrease in the number of Palestinians imprisoned or held in administrative detention.