who were shot dead at Qalandia checkpoint in April by private contractors employed by the Israeli Ministry of Defence. EXCESSIVE USE OF FORCE Israeli forces used excessive, sometimes lethal, force against Palestinian protesters in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, killing 22 and injuring thousands with rubber-coated metal bullets and live ammunition. Many protesters threw rocks or other projectiles but were posing no threat to the lives of well-protected Israeli soldiers when they were shot. FREEDOMS OF EXPRESSION, ASSOCIATION AND ASSEMBLY The authorities used a range of measures to target human rights defenders, in both Israel and the OPT, who criticized Israel’s continuing occupation of the Palestinian territories. On 11 July the Knesset passed the socalled Transparency Law, which imposed new reporting requirements on organizations that receive more than 50% of their funding from foreign governments, almost all of which were human rights groups or other NGOs critical of the Israeli government. Using military orders prohibiting unauthorized demonstrations in the West Bank, the authorities suppressed protests by Palestinians and arrested and prosecuted protesters and human rights defenders. Following the annual “Open Shuhada Street” protest in Hebron on 26 February, the authorities prosecuted Palestinian human rights defenders Issa Amro and Farid alAtrash on charges that included participating in a march without a permit and entering a closed military zone. They were apparently prosecuted on account of their peaceful exercise of the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly. Issa Amro also faced charges arising from his peaceful activism in previous years. For months after he filmed the extrajudicial execution of Abed al-Fatah al-Sharif by an Israeli soldier on 24 March in Hebron, B’Tselem volunteer Imad Abu Shamsiyeh received death threats from Israelis in nearby 204 illegal settlements. Police turned him away and threatened to arrest him when he sought to lodge a complaint in August. Palestinians and foreign nationals assisting human rights NGOs such as Al-Haq with their work in connection with the ICC received death threats. A number of prominent Israeli human rights organizations and their staff, including Breaking the Silence, B’Tselem and Amnesty International Israel, were targeted by a government campaign to undermine their work. In May the authorities charged former nuclear whistle-blower and prisoner of conscience Mordechai Vanunu with breaching the severe and arbitrary restrictions the authorities have imposed on his rights to freedom of movement and expression. The case was still pending at the end of the year. HOUSING RIGHTS – FORCED EVICTIONS AND DEMOLITIONS In the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, the Israeli authorities demolished 1,089 homes and other structures built without Israeli permits, an unprecedentedly high number of demolitions, forcibly evicting more than 1,593 people. Permits remained virtually impossible for Palestinians to obtain. Many of the demolitions were in Bedouin and herding communities which the Israeli authorities planned to transfer against the residents’ wishes. The authorities also collectively punished the families of Palestinians who carried out attacks on Israelis by demolishing or making uninhabitable 25 family homes, thereby forcibly evicting their inhabitants. The authorities also demolished hundreds of Palestinian homes and other structures inside Israel that they said were built without permits, mostly in Bedouin villages in the Negev/Naqab region. Many of the villages were officially “unrecognized”. IMPUNITY More than two years after the end of the 2014 Gaza-Israel conflict, in which some Amnesty International Report 2016/17