Israeli military and security forces killed at least 38 Palestinians,
including 11 children, during demonstrations in the Gaza Strip and West
Bank, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian
Affairs (OCHA). Many were unlawfully killed by live ammunition or other
excessive force when posing no imminent threat to life. Many of the
unlawful killings appeared to be wilful, which would constitute war
crimes.
Palestinians in the Gaza Strip continued weekly “Great March of
Return protests” that began in March 2018. According to the Palestinian
Centre for Human Rights, by 27 December, 215 Palestinians had been
killed, among them 47 children, four paramedics and two journalists.
Some Palestinian protesters engaged in violence, including by throwing
stones and Molotov cocktails towards Israeli soldiers.
On 28 February, the UN Commission of Inquiry into violations
committed in the context of the protests in Gaza between March and
December 2018 found that Israeli forces may have committed war crimes,
including by deliberately firing at Palestinian civilians.
In July, Israeli media reported that the Israeli military had decided
to change their open-fire regulations, which had allowed snipers to fire
at protesters’ lower limbs above the knee, but only after over a year
of it being aware that they were leading needlessly to deaths and
devastating injuries; snipers were briefed, in the future, to shoot
below the knee.
On 16 May, the Israeli army closed the investigation into the killing of Ibrahim Abu Thuraya, who used a wheelchair, during the Gaza protests in December 2017, without pressing any charges.
On 30 October, the army sentenced an Israeli soldier who shot
dead 15-year-old Palestinian Othman Halas during a protest in Gaza in
July 2018 to community service and reduced his rank for “endangering a
life by deviating from orders”.
Israeli air strikes and shelling in the Gaza Strip killed 28
Palestinian civilians who were not directly participating in
hostilities, including 10 children; 13 civilians were killed in the
hostilities of 3-6 May and 15 in those of 12-16 November. Some of the
attacks in which civilians were killed or injured appeared to have been
indiscriminate or disproportionate or to have been carried out without
adequate precautions to spare civilians.
Israeli settler attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank
resulted in the killing of two Palestinians and the injuring of 112,
according to OCHA. There has been a pattern of Israeli forces failing to
intervene to stop such attacks and the Israeli judiciary failing to
hold perpetrators to account.
