An Israeli human rights group today reported "some important improvements" in treatment of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank but this was offset by the impact of Jewish settlements and the blockade of Gaza.
In its annual report, B'Tselem said most of the improvements in the 16-month period from January 2009 were the result of a period of relative calm in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict rather than any change in Israeli policies.
Positive changes, B'tselem said, included an easing of Israeli-imposed movement restrictions in the West Bank, a freeze on East Jerusalem house demolitions this year and a reduction in administrative detentions - those without charge or trial - as well as in the number of Israeli and Palestinian fatalities.
"Most of the improvements, however, did not result from changes in Israeli policy or legislation, but are the result of the relative calm in the conflict," it said in a statement. "In other areas, the violations continued as in the past," it said.
It highlighted examples including the blockade of the Gaza Strip, which Israel is now facing international pressure to lift or ease, and the impact of settlement in the West Bank on Palestinian lives.
In Gaza, "the almost total prohibition on the import of raw materials and on exports continued to paralyze local industry, and more than 70 per cent of Gazans relied on aid from international organisations to obtain food", B'Tselem said. In the West Bank, B'Tselem said Jewish settlements continue to have "severe repercussions for Palestinians' human rights".
There are some 500,000 Jewish settlers living in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, territories captured by Israel in a 1967 war. Major powers view the settlements as an obstacle to a peace settlement that would establish a viable Palestinian state alongside Israel on the lands it captured in 1967.
As violence has fallen, Israel has continued to build a barrier through the West Bank that it says keeps suicide bombers and militants from crossing into the Jewish state, but which Palestinians call a land grab since it cuts off a number of villages and separates some farmers from their land.
B'Tselem said the pace of barrier construction had slowed but it continued to cut off a number of Palestinian villages and land holdings. Israel started work on the barrier during the Palestinian uprising, or Intifada, earlier this decade.
"Despite two changes that were implemented following High Court rulings, the barrier continued to harm severely tens of thousands of Palestinians," B'Tselem said.
"Israel continued to restrict Palestinian access to extensive areas in the West Bank, such as East Jerusalem, the Jordan Valley, and land west of the separation barrier, and generally treated Palestinian freedom of movement as a privilege it may retract at will," it said.
The organisation added said that allegations of breaches of international law by both Israel and Hamas during the 2008-09 conflict in Gaza had yet to be properly investigated.
The B'Tselem report covered the 16-month period since he end of Israel's three-week offensive into Gaza, a conflict which killed 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis.
Reuters