ISRAEL - Nov.10 - Amnesty Attacks.

Amnesty International in a report accuses the Jewish state of intimidating hundreds of Israeli Arabs, subjecting them to beatings and humiliation at the hands of police and border guards. (The report coincides with continuing violence and the sealing off of the West Bank towns of Ramallah and Bethlehem after two Israeli soldiers were wounded. Fishing jetties in the south of the Gaza Strip were also closed - 3 days after a man blew up himself and his fishing vessel near an Israeli naval patrol boat. The report - the second to be published on the latest wave of conflict - reflects increasing scrutiny of Israeli human rights violations, particularly against young, unarmed Palestinians. Mary Robinson, the UN human rights commissioner visiting the West Bank, is attacked by Jewish settlers).

In many cases, says Amnesty, bail was refused to detainees. Requests by defence lawyers for independent medical examinations for their clients were turned down. In at least 10 cases, defendants were refused access to their lawyers for up to a week. The arrests were usually made late at night, or at checkpoint crossings. It says officers sometimes broke down doors, destroyed furniture and grabbed those they suspected of involvement in demonstrations or disturbances. The heavily armed police sometimes wore balaclavas and brought dogs. The police asked three private hospitals in Nazareth "to provide information on the identity of people whom they treated for injuries sustained during the demonstrations". Children were arrested, in breach of police procedures, which insist that those aged under 18 be questioned in the presence of their parents and during the day. Some of the children were handcuffed, "shouted at, insulted and threatened". Most of those arrested, says Amnesty, were accused of throwing stones, damaging property, or public order offences such as participating in unlawful assemblies or rioting. As of Oct.30, in figures provided by the Justice Ministry to Amnesty, 1,000 Israeli citizens had been arrested, of whom two-thirds were Palestinians. It adds: "Despite the Attorney General's statement that the same policy of seeking justice applied to Jews as well as to Palestinians, a far higher proportion of Palestinians have been ordered detained until the end of the trial than Jews".