US State Dept. on Israeli Human Rights

http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2003/27929.htm

"There continue to be problems with respect to its treatment of its Arab citizens. Israeli and international human rights organizations continued to report allegations that security forces tortured detainees during interrogation and that police officers beat detainees. The conditions in military detention camps and Israeli interrogation centers for Palestinian security detainees held in Israel remained poor, and did not meet international standards. Human rights groups issued complaints regarding torture, insufficient living space, and inadequate medical care for those detained in interrogation centers. During the year, the Government detained without charge thousands of persons in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza. According to human rights nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in the country, some security prisoners were sentenced on the basis of coerced confessions.

The Government did little to reduce institutional, legal, and societal discrimination against the country's Arab citizens, who constituted approximately 20 percent of the population but did not share fully the rights and benefits provided to, and obligations imposed on, the country's Jewish citizens. The Government interfered with individual privacy in some instances. The Government interfered with an individual's ability to marry within the country by not recognizing Jewish marriages other than those performed by the Orthodox Jewish establishment and by prohibiting civil marriages. Discrimination and societal violence against women persisted, although the Government continued to take steps to address these problems. Discrimination against persons with disabilities persisted. Trafficking in women into the country for the purpose of forced prostitution was a continuing problem. There was evidence of labor trafficking among the country's estimated 236,000 foreign workers. Abuse of foreign workers, including prostitutes, some of whom were trafficked to and employed illegally in the country, continued."

Israeli authorities abused Palestinians at checkpoints, subjecting them to verbal and physical harassment. Each day, tens of thousands of Palestinians traveling between Palestinian towns and villages faced as many as 730 different barriers to movement. At year's end, Israel had established 60 checkpoints, 9 occasionally manned checkpoints, 479 earthen mounds blocking roads, 102 cement roadblocks, 39 road gates, and 41 gates in a separation barrier. As many as several thousand Palestinians encountered some form of abuse from soldiers at checkpoints. Palestinians were subjected to excessive delays in passing through checkpoints. For example, on May 12, an IDF soldier at the Hawarah checkpoint outside Nablus decided to only let Palestinians pass through who were able to identify the Israeli political figure on the 100 Shekel note. On April 30, an IDF soldier abused Qassem Awisat, 19, a resident of Qalqilya, when he attempted to pass through the Seida checkpoint in the Tulkarm district. The soldier pulled Awisat aside and etched a Star of David on his arm using shards of broken glass. The Israeli human rights organization B'tselem documented Awisat's testimony of the incident and photographed the injury to his arm. Israeli soldiers forced Palestinian civilians to wait in the rain or inclement weather for excessive periods of time.