Official Palestinian health statistics, compared against human
rights organizations data and press reports were submitted for the
final report for the year 2006. The report was issued from Gaza this
afternoon and indicates that Israeli forces killed 742 Palestinians,
injured 3,735 and arrested 5,671 in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the
year 2006. Two hundred and ten were killed in targeted assassinations,
and 588 of the total number of Palestinians killed were in the Gaza
Strip.
Israeli forces killed 154 Palestinians in the West Bank. The Israelis killed 144 children, the youngest being three days old. Israeli forces killed 52 women, including pregnant women, mothers, the elderly and five women with special needs. Palestinians killed 23 Israelis, as reported by the Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem.
July was the worst month with Israeli forces killing 188 Palestinians, while November came in second for death with Israeli forces killing 140 Palestinians, most of them in the Gaza Strip.
Israeli forces launched psychological campaigns with threatening radio broadcasts, holding families hostage if “wanted” family members did not give themselves to Israeli forces, and the frequent use of air raids and sound bombs, one of which caused a woman to die of a heart attack in the West Bank. Israeli forces targeted the infrastructure: schools, homes, the water and electrical supplies, and roads, particularly in the northeastern Gaza Strip.
Entire families were targeted this year, such as the Ghalia family blown away by a mortar shell from an Israeli warship while they sat on the Gaza beach, leaving a young girl Huda as the only survivor. Israeli forces also bombed a northern Gaza Strip house with an extended family sleeping inside, killing 18 people, mostly women and children, in a matter of moments.
Israeli forces conducted air attacks on 45 houses in the Gaza Strip by claiming they belonged to members of the armed resistance. Some of them did, however in 2006 it was still legal under international law to resist occupation. The practice of air destruction ended only when thousands of Gazans covered the roof tops and yards of targeted houses with their own bodies, refusing to allow the bombs to drop without causing major deaths and problems for Israeli forces.
Israeli forces destroyed 24 East Jerusalem homes under the pretext of “non-licensing” while continuing to overtake the city. Of the 5,671 Palestinians arrested in 2006, 5,425 were in the West Bank. Israeli forces arrested 300 children in 2006, 140 of whom are still in custody as the year 2007 begins. A total of 368 Palestinian children are in Israeli prisons. And Israeli forces arrested dozens of elected officials for being members of the Hamas party, and continue to hold several, including Legislative Council Speaker, Dr. Azziz Dweik.
Deliveries of gas were stopped, checkpoints were closed, and the Israeli government stopped paying the taxes it owes for Palestinian trade as it all must pass through the Israelis, causing havoc to ensue in the Palestinian economy. The public transportation, fishing and farming industries were all nearly destroyed due to fuel shortages, closures, and Wall and settlement expansion and the ensuing land confiscation in 2006.
