Human Rights Watch accused Israeli Occupation police of using “excessive force” against Palestinian protesters in the city of Lod, also known as Lydda, or Lydd in Arabic, during May revolution against the Israeli oppression, while treating Jewish rioters more favourably.
The violence in Lod, a city with a sizeable Palestinian minority in central of occupied lands of Palestine, came amid an escalation in illegally occupied and annexed Jerusalem in May.
There, Palestinian protesters facing expulsion in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood faced aggression from Israeli occupation forces, while Israeli occupation launched a deadly 11-day bombing campaign against the besieged Gaza Strip, killing over 250 people.
HRW said: “The Occuption forces appeared to act half-heartedly and unevenly to violence against Palestinian citizens of Israel committed by Jewish ultra-nationalists.”
The group’s report cited instances where police “failed to act in a timely manner to protect Palestinian residents of Lod” from violent Jewish groups.
It also cited instances in which “Israeli Occupation Forces used excessive force to disperse peaceful protests by Palestinians.”
Human Rights Watch has accused Israel of committing crimes of apartheid against Palestinians in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and inside Israel.
HRW’s Israel and Palestine director, Omar Shakir, was expelled by Israel in 2019 over allegations that he previously supported the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, which seeks to isolate Israel for its mistreatment of Palestinians.
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