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Why this Israeli rights organization will stop submitting complaints to army

Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem has decided it will no longer submit complaints to the Israeli army regarding human rights violations by its soldiers.

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Israeli right-wing protesters demonstrate outside a military court during a hearing of an Israeli soldier whom the military said has been arrested after he shot a wounded and motionless Palestinian assailant, near the southern Israeli city of Kiryat Malachi, March 29, 2016. — REUTERS/Amir Cohen

The Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem has decided it will no longer submit complaints to the Israeli army regarding human rights violations by its soldiers. In an 81-page report titled “The Occupation's Fig Leaf: Israel’s Military Law Enforcement System as a Whitewash Mechanism,” the Israeli nongovernmental organization reached the conclusion that their complaints to their own army are mostly a waste of time.

According to the B’Tselem report, since the second intifada, B’Tselem has reported 739 cases of grave human rights violations by the Israeli army. In 182 of them, no investigation was ever launched. The report also states that in nearly half the complaints filed (343), the investigation was closed with no further action. B’Tselem did say that in very rare instances (25 out 739), charges were brought against the implicated soldiers.

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