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Israeli Rights Group Decry Atrocities Against Palestinians
by Sarah Darwish
CAIRO, Jan 24 (IslamOnline) - An Israeli human rights organization is protesting an Israeli court ruling sentencing an Israeli settler for six months of community service and an extremely low fine of 70,000 shekels after killing a twelve-year old Palestinian boy.
B'tselem, an Israeli human rights information center in the occupied territories, protested the court's decision saying it conveys "a message that Palestinian life is cheap."
B'Tselem said the sentence by the Jerusalem District Court passed on Sunday against Nachum Korman for killing Hilmi Shusha was "ridiculous", saying the decision is a green light for Israeli settlers in the occupied territories to resume aggression against Palestinians unabated.
B'Tselem's press release said the court's decision is a continuation of a practice within Israeli institutions disregarding Israeli assaults against Palestinians.
Amnesty International, issuing its own condemnation of the sentencing in a press release, said, "The sentence handed down to Nahum Korman sends out a powerful message - that Israelis can kill Palestinians with impunity."
"Throughout the years, all these institutions have turned a blind eye to cases where Israelis injure innocent Palestinians, and have even supported them," B'Tselem said, referring to Israeli police, Defense Forces and Israeli courts.
"This policy stands in blatant contradiction to the authorities' treatment of cases where Palestinians injure Israelis," the group said.
Supporting B'Tselem's assertion, Amnesty contrasted Korman's punishment with that of Su'ad Hilmi Ghazal, 15, a Palestinian suffering from psychological problems who in December 1998 stabbed an Israeli settler, injuring him. Despite being a minor, she was immediately arrested and was held incommunicado without access to either a lawyer or her family for 27 days, 17 of which within solitary confinement.
Since then, Ghazal, whose mental health has deteriorated as a result of the ordeal, has been held for two years in the women's section of Neve Terze prison in Ramle.
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present case, treated lightly by the Western press, involves Nachum Korman, an Israeli settler who went to the house of a 12-year-old Palestinian boy, Hilmi Shusha, and kicked him to death.
"The settler went, looked toward the house and saw that no one was there, came back and grabbed Hilmi and immediately kicked him in the head. The settler was wearing army boots. Hilmi, my cousin, stood three meters from me," said Ibrahim Shusha, Hilmi's cousin.
"After [that,] he kicked Hilmi in the neck and hit him once on the head with the butt of his pistol," Ibrahim added, lamenting the loss of his 12-year-old cousin.
This manslaughter is one of dozens of Israeli assaults against unarmed Palestinians that B'tselem solely investigates, as Israeli police rarely investigate such cases.
"The few cases that do reach the courts end in acquittal or in light sentences" B'Tselem reported, affirming that even when courts impose serious charges, Israeli leadership interferes, reducing heavy sentences.
B'Tselem, established in 1989, conducts studies where it observes abuses are occurring, and defends human rights violations in Gaza and the West Bank.
The Palestinian Red Crescent estimates that since the beginning of a Palestinian Intifada (uprising) against Israeli occupation, more than 350 Palestinian, mostly children, died at the hands of the Israeli Defense Forces, dubbed by Islamic activists as Israeli Death Forces for their excessive use of force.
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