Prepared by the European Union heads of mission to the Palestinian Authority, the report is a strongly-worded and very critical of Israel's settlement activities in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The draft, obtained by +972 Magazine and published here in full, is to be presented to the EU's Political Security Committee (PSC/COPPS). Among its recommendations are preventing financial transactions that support settlements and informing EU companies of the legal and financial risks of doing business with and in Israeli settlements. The report was prepared in January 2013 and covers 2012. Read a news report based on the document here and…

In the second half of January at least five unarmed Palestinian civilians were shot and killed by IDF fire in the West Bank and Gaza. The following report shows a dramatic downward trend in the rate of indictments served against IDF soldiers for alleged offenses in 2012, a year in which only one indictment was served against a soldier accused of abusing a Palestinian. By Yesh Din In the wake of recent events, Yesh Din has published a new data sheet about criminal accountability of IDF soldiers in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The data indicates a clear downward…

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) has released its annual assessment of the state of human rights in Israel and in the occupied Palestinian Territories. The 2012 report includes chapters on house demolitions in Palestinian and Bedouin villages, the occupation of the West Bank and the regime of discrimination, the persecution of asylum seekers, the lack of affordable housing, and the privatization of the police and the judiciary.  Established in 1972, ACRI is Israel’s oldest and largest human rights organization and the only one dealing with the entire spectrum of rights and civil liberties issues in Israel and the Occupied Territories. Read more about…

A breakdown of the myriad of settlement plans being aggressively pursued in recent weeks. By Hagit Ofran and Lior Amihai The past few weeks may have been confusing for those who try to keep track of Israeli settlement activity. So many plans and approvals, some of which are lethal for the two-state solution, make it clear that the Netanyahu government has decided to push forward as many plans as possible in order to determine facts on the ground before the elections in Israel, as long as there is no “threat” of any renewal of the peace process. Following are the…

Who are the leading Arab candidates in the upcoming Knesset elections? Who is trying to ban them from running, and how? How did such attempts end in previous elections? How many Palestinian citizens can vote in the Knesset elections, and how many are expected to vote? A Q&A by the human rights organization Adalah answers those questions, and more. By Adalah [At the bottom of the document you will find the viewing option bar, which will allow you to zoom in or out. If you still have troubles reading or in case you don't see the embedded document at all,…

Twenty-five years ago this past weekend, a large-scale popular uprising by Palestinians began against Israel's then 20-year-old military occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza. Sparked by an incident in which four Palestinians were hit and killed by an Israeli driving in Gaza on December 8, 1987, Palestinian frustration at living under repressive Israeli military rule and Israel's growing colonial settlement enterprise erupted, grabbing international headlines and drawing attention to the plight of Palestinians living in the occupied territories. On this 25th anniversary, the IMEU offers the following fact sheet on the First Intifada. By The Institute for…

In response to the Palestinian statehood bid, the Israeli government has decided to promote zoning plans for the area known as E1, northeast of Jerusalem. The project is intended to link annexed East Jerusalem with the mega-settlement of Ma'aleh Adumin, thus finally making the creation of a contiguous Palestinian State impossible.  By Ir Amim E1 (derived from “East 1”) is a term applied by the Ministry of Housing to an area located just east of the Jerusalem municipal boundary, on the hills between Ma’aleh Adummim and Jerusalem. It lies north of the Jerusalem-Ma’aleh Adummim road and edges the Palestinian towns…

How is this Palestinian Authority UN statehood bid different from last year's? What's an observer state? What does it mean for Oslo, or for the settlements? The Association for Civil Rights in Israel has the answers. The Chairman of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, recently announced that on 29 November [today] he intends to turn to the United Nations General Assembly, requesting to upgrade the Palestinian Authority's status in the UN from an "observer entity" to a "non-member observer state." This initiative follows the Palestinian bid to the UN Security Council in September 2011, asking to admit Palestine to the…

The different legal systems under which Israelis and Palestinians are tried apply to children as well. As +972 has consistently documented, Palestinian children arrested by the army are treated by the military court system as "potential terrorists." The visual below demonstrates what would happen should two 12-year-old boys, one Israeli and one Palestinian, get arrested for fighting. One would swiftly be brought before a judge, given access to a lawyer, tried and spared jail time. The other could face two years in jail without trial. This illustration is the eighth in a series of infographics on Palestinian civilian life under occupation.…