The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has claimed almost 8,900 lives in two decades, the vast majority of them Palestinians, the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem said in a statement published yesterday.
Israeli forces killed 7,398 Palestinians, including 1,537 minors, both in Israel and the Occupied Territories during that period, while Palestinians killed 1,483 Israelis, including 139 minors, B’Tselem said.
Among the Israeli victims, 488 were police or military troops, and the remaining 995 were civilians killed in attacks in Israel or in the Occupied Territories, it said.
This year, marked by Israel’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip, was the bloodiest in the past two decades for Palestinians.
A total of 1,033 Palestinians, including 315 minors, have been killed this year, most of them during the Gaza war, the report said, adding that a total of 1,387 Palestinians were killed during the Israeli offensive.
Thirteen Israelis were killed, including four soldiers by friendly fire, in the three-week-long war launched on Dec. 27.
For Israel, 2002, at the height of the second Palestinian intifada, or uprising, was the deadliest year, with 420 people killed, including 269 civilians, of whom 47 were minors, the statement said.
The statement, which marks the 20th anniversary of B’Tselem, also said 335 Palestinians are being held without trial under Israeli military orders. In 1989 the number reached 1,794.
It also said Israeli authorities tore down 4,300 Palestinian homes over the past 20 years.
Israel justifies the demolitions by saying the houses lacked the necessary permits, but Palestinians and human rights groups say the documents are virtually impossible to obtain.
In addition, B’Tselem estimates that 6,240 houses were destroyed during military operations in Gaza, including 3,540 during the December and January offensive that Israel said it launched to halt rocket attacks from the Hamas-run Palestinian enclave.
The group took out a full-page ad in the Haaretz daily that read: “The B’Tselem organization regrets to announce that it has reached 20.”
“We are fed up and people are fed up of us, but 4 million people living in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are to this day deprived of their most basic human rights and they are even more fed up than we are,” it said.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique