Since the beginning of May 2020, B’Tselem has documented five incidents in which soldiers lay in wait for Palestinians trying to enter Israel for work through gaps in the Security Barrier near Far’on, a village south of Tulkarm.
In four cases, the soldiers shot the workers and injured five of them. In the other case, the soldiers beat a 15-year-old until his arm broke and he suffered abdominal hemorrhaging.
In most of the cases, the soldiers then treated the wounded and an Israeli ambulance took them to the nearby al-Kafriyat checkpoint, where soldiers took photographs of them and of their ID cards. They were then transferred to a Red Crescent ambulance, which took them to hospital in Tulkarm.
Thousands of Palestinian laborers enter Israel every day without permits, as they have no other choice.
For many, obtaining a permit requires overcoming a series of insurmountable obstacles that Israel has instated as a matter of policy while also preventing the development of an independent Palestinian economy.
Since the coronavirus broke out, Israel has imposed additional restrictions on laborers wishing to enter Israel, such as reducing the number of permits issued and requiring workers who enter to stay in Israel for lengthy periods without going home.
The state is well aware of this reality and benefits from the cheap, disempowered workforce.
Shooting Palestinians who try to cross the barrier is not a new practice, nor is it unique to the area of Far’on, as B’Tselem’s documentation shows. In the last three months of 2019 alone, in the same district, soldiers shot at the legs of at least 17 Palestinians trying to enter Israel through gaps in the barrier, and fired a rubber-coated metal bullet at the legs of another.
There is no way to justify beating a minor or shooting at the legs of laborers who are not endangering a soul. The soldiers who did this were lying in wait, knowing full well where Palestinians would try to cross the barrier, awaiting the moment they could injure them.
An important point is that this practice is not the choice of a single soldier, but part of a well-oiled policy. That is why no one will be held accountable for this latest series of incidents, either – for opening fire on the ground or for leading the policy that allowed it.
Source: B’TSELEM – published 18 June 2020