Israeli forces ‘killed 27 Palestinians in 2020’

Israeli security forces committed "heinous killings" throughout 2020, shooting dead at least 27 Palestinians across occupied Palestinian territories and in Israel, according to Israeli rights group B'Tselem. "Over the course of 2020, Israeli security forces killed 27 Palestinians, seven of them minors: one in the Gaza Strip, 23 in the West Bank [including East Jerusalem] and three inside Israel," B'Tselem said on Monday. In at least 11 of the 16 killings investigated by B'Tselem in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinians "posed no threat to the lives of the forces" or any other person at the time they were shot. Over the course of 2020, amid the raging coronavirus pandemic, Israeli authorities also destroyed at least 729 Palestinian buildings, including homes and non-residential structures. In 2020, the group said, more Palestinians lost their homes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem than in every year since 2016.