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Shabak, Magav, & IDF - How Israel Killed 134,000 Since 1948 ⚖️
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February 17, 2026
"The minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect and to violate would be oppression." — Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, 1801
Since 1948, Israeli security forces have killed approximately 134,000 Palestinians.[4]
Nearly half that number, over 61,000, died in the twenty-seven months since October 2023.
Seventy-five years to kill the first 73,000. Twenty-seven months to kill the next 61,000.
The United States kills 1,100 people a year and prosecutes almost nobody. That's the domestic model. Israel perfected the export version.
The Architecture of Israel
The legal architecture is familiar.
In the United States, qualified immunity protects officers who kill. This is a judge-made doctrine, not a law passed by Congress. The Supreme Court invented it in 1967 and expanded it in 1982. Here's how it works: to sue an officer for violating your rights, you must prove that the exact conduct was already ruled unconstitutional in a prior case with nearly identical facts. If an officer kills you in a way that's slightly different from previous cases, they're immune. Courts have dismissed lawsuits because the prior case involved a different breed of dog, or because the victim was lying down instead of sitting. The result is a legal shield that protects almost any killing as long as it's creative enough to be "novel."
The Supremacy Clause shields federal agents from state prosecution. The "objectively reasonable" standard makes conviction nearly impossible.
Israel has its own version, and it's worth understanding the structure in American terms:
Mishtara (Israel Police): Normal cops. Think NYPD or LAPD. Inside Israel, they killed 14 citizens over five years, about 3 per year. Almost all victims were Arab. Almost European numbers. This is the face Israel shows the world.
IDF: The army. Like the US military, they're not supposed to operate domestically. But the occupied territories aren't "domestic" under Israeli law, so the army runs the show there.
Shin Bet (Shabak): Israel's FBI. Domestic intelligence, counterterrorism, interrogation. Between 2000 and 2011, they conducted 425 targeted killings, about 39 per year during the Second Intifada.[1] Of those killed, 41% were bystanders, not targets. They work with the Air Force on drone strikes. They've tortured thousands: 850 complaints filed, zero investigated.[2] In December 2023, the Shin Bet director announced they would kill Hamas leaders "in Gaza, West Bank, Lebanon, Turkey, Qatar, everywhere." Imagine the FBI director saying that on camera.
Magav (Border Police): This is the one with no American equivalent. Technically police, but they operate under IDF Central Command, which means political control. They're the enforcement arm: raids in Jenin, Nablus, Ramallah. The combat work. They're 22% of police personnel but do virtually all the killing in the territories. Hundreds per year. No prosecutions. If you combined ICE, the US Marshals, and a SWAT team, put them under Pentagon command, and told them the Constitution doesn't apply, you'd have Magav.
| Agency | American Equivalent | Killing Rate | Prosecution Rate |
|--------|---------------------|--------------|------------------|
| Mishtara | NYPD, LAPD | ~3/year | ~0% |
| IDF | US Army | Thousands (wartime) | 0% |
| Shin Bet | FBI | Dozens/year + 41% bystanders | 0% |
| Magav | ICE + Marshals + SWAT under Pentagon | Hundreds/year | 0% |
The civilian police are almost European. The army is the army. The FBI equivalent runs assassinations. And Magav, the enforcement arm under political command, does the daily killing in the territories.
Palestinians don't encounter Mishtara. They encounter Magav, Shin Bet, and the IDF. None answer to civilian courts. None face prosecution.
The legal architecture makes this explicit: Palestinians in the territories are subject to military law. Israeli settlers living on the same street are subject to civil law. Same road, different legal universes.
The result is the same: a population that can be killed without consequence.
In America, the victims are disproportionately Black and brown. In Israel, they're exclusively Arab. The mechanism is identical: define a population as outside the full protection of law, then act accordingly.
But the scale isn't comparable.
Black Americans are killed by police at 2.5 times the rate of white Americans.[3] That disparity is real and damning. But Black Americans are still citizens. They vote. They serve on juries. They can, in theory, become police chiefs and prosecutors and presidents. The system is biased against them, but they exist within it.
Palestinians in the occupied territories have none of that. No citizenship. No vote. No representation. No path to power. They exist entirely outside the system that governs their lives and deaths.
American police brutality is a civil rights crisis within a democracy. Israeli military violence is an occupation enforced by a democracy against people who have no democratic recourse whatsoever.
If you think the US has a problem with cops versus Black Americans, the IDF versus Arabs is on another level entirely. It's not a disparity within a system. It's a system designed to exclude.
This post is public. Share it with anyone who should see this.
The Numbers of Killed
In 2022, before October 7, Israeli security forces killed 146 Palestinians in the West Bank alone.[5] In 2021, they killed 313.[6] In 2019, 133, including 28 children.[7]
These weren't war years. These were "normal" years.
The rate works out to roughly 11-14 killed per 10 million people under Israeli security jurisdiction. That's between Canada and the United States on the international scale.
But that's the wrong denominator.
If you calculate the rate for Palestinians specifically (roughly 5 million in the West Bank and Gaza), the numbers look different:
| Population | Annual Deaths (pre-2023) | Rate per 10 Million |
|------------|--------------------------|---------------------|
| Japanese | 2 | 0.2 |
| British | 3 | 0.45 |
| German | 12 | 1.5 |
| American | 1,100 | 33.5 |
| Palestinian | 150-300 | 300-600 |
Palestinians are killed by Israeli security forces at 10-20 times the American rate. And the American rate is already 165 times Japan.
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Killed While Unarmed
The number that should end every debate: of 968 Palestinians killed by Israeli security forces in the West Bank between October 2023 and October 2025, almost half (449) were unarmed and "not involved in any violence or confrontation at the time of their killing."[8]
Unarmed means no firearms, no explosives, often simply present during a raid or checkpoint stop.
The B'Tselem database tracks every death.[9] The methodology is rigorous. They distinguish between those "participating in hostilities" and those who weren't. The data is clear: Israel routinely kills people who pose no threat.
Prosecution Rates (effectively zero)
In American numbers: fewer than 3% of police killings result in charges. Convictions are rarer still.
Israel's rate is worse.
In a five-year period from 2014 to 2019, Israeli police shot dead 14 Israeli citizens inside the Green Line in incidents not categorized as terrorism. The department tasked with investigating these killings closed all but two of the cases.[10] Almost all the victims were Arab.
For Palestinians in the occupied territories, the prosecution rate is effectively zero. The Israeli human rights organization Yesh Din found that 91% of investigations into IDF soldiers suspected of harming Palestinians were closed without indictment.[11]
Closed without indictment. The same phrase that follows American police shootings. The same result.
The Democracy Paradox
Israel looks like a democracy. It has elections, a free press, an independent judiciary, and robust civil society organizations that document abuses. B'Tselem exists. +972 Magazine publishes. Haaretz reports.
None of it matters.
The documentation is meticulous.
Democracy doesn't prevent state violence. It just provides better record-keeping. Israel documents its killings with German precision and prosecutes them with American indifference.
Institutions exist. They function. They produce reports. They provide transparency because they know it will make you more afraid and powerless.
Post-October 7
The Gaza war changed the scale but not the pattern.
Since October 7, 2023, Israeli forces have killed over 61,000 Palestinians in Gaza and more than 1,000 in the West Bank.[12] The UN reports that one in five West Bank victims is a child.[13]
You can argue about October 7. You can argue about Hamas. You can argue about self-defense and proportionality and the laws of war.
But you cannot argue that Israel prosecutes soldiers who kill civilians. It doesn't. The pattern from "normal" years, the 91% closure rate, the unarmed victims, the zero accountability, that pattern continued through the war. It accelerated.
America Exceptionally Exports Frameworks of Violence
This is what American impunity looks like when exported.
The United States provides Israel with $3.8 billion in military aid annually.[14] American weapons kill Palestinians. American legal doctrines justify it. American diplomatic cover protects it.
When Israeli soldiers kill unarmed Palestinians, they face the same accountability as American cops who kill unarmed Black men: internal investigation, case closed, no indictment.
Blackwater killed 17 Iraqis in Nisour Square and got pardoned. Israeli soldiers kill hundreds annually and aren't charged in the first place. The US kills 1,100 of its own citizens and prosecutes 3%.
Different scales. Same impunity. Same architecture.
Questions
If you were outraged by George Floyd, are you outraged by Jenin?
If you were outraged by Ashli Babbitt or Renee Good, are you outraged by Gaza?
If you believe federal agents shouldn't execute citizens without trial, do you believe that principle applies to occupied populations?
The consistent position is rare. Most people discover their principles have borders.
In the USA, we execute citizens in the street. We argue about whether they deserved it. We move on.
Israel does the same thing, on a larger scale, to a captive population with nowhere to move on to.
That isn't a flaw in the democracy. It is the design of the democracy.
The USA is its largest financial sponsor.
Notes
Notes
[1] "Targeted killing by Israel." Wikipedia. Documents 425 targeted killings by Shin Bet/IDF between September 2000 and August 2011, with 41% of those killed being civilian bystanders.
[2] "Shin Bet." Wikipedia. Documents Shin Bet's role in targeted killings and torture, noting 850 complaints of torture filed with zero investigations.
[3] "2025 Police Violence Report." Mapping Police Violence. Documents that Black Americans are 2.5 times more likely to be killed by police than white Americans.
[4] "134,000 Palestinians killed since 1948." Al Jazeera, November 2024. Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics cumulative total of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces since 1948.
[5] "The Occupied Territories in 2022." B'Tselem, January 2023. Documents 146 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank in 2022, the deadliest year since 2004.
[6] "2021 was the deadliest year since 2014." B'Tselem, January 2022. Documents 313 Palestinians killed including 71 minors.
[7] "The year in review: Israeli forces killed 133 Palestinians." B'Tselem, January 2020. Documents 133 Palestinians killed in 2019, including 28 minors.
[8] "Spike in Israeli lethal force against Palestinians in Occupied West Bank." Amnesty International, February 2024. Reports that of 968 Palestinians killed, almost half (449) were unarmed and not involved in any violence.
[9] "Statistics." B'Tselem. Comprehensive database tracking all fatalities in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since September 2000.
[10] "14 Israeli citizens gunned down by police in five years, not a single indictment." +972 Magazine. Documents that almost all victims were people of color and nearly all cases were closed without charges.
[11] "Law Enforcement on Israeli Soldiers Suspected of Harming Palestinians." Yesh Din, December 2022. Found that 91% of investigations into IDF soldiers suspected of harming Palestinians were closed without indictment.
[12] "Israel & Palestinian territories: number of fatalities." Statista. Tracks cumulative fatalities in the Gaza war since October 7, 2023.
[13] "UN Human Rights: 1001 Palestinians killed in West Bank since 7 October 2023." UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, October 2025. Reports one in five victims is a child.
[14] "U.S. Foreign Aid to Israel." Congressional Research Service. Documents $3.8 billion annual military aid commitment under 2016 Memorandum of Understanding.
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tatsuikeda.substack.com/subscribe
View all episodes
By Tatsu IkedaThis post is public. Share it with anyone who should see this.
February 17, 2026
"The minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect and to violate would be oppression." — Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, 1801
Since 1948, Israeli security forces have killed approximately 134,000 Palestinians.[4]
Nearly half that number, over 61,000, died in the twenty-seven months since October 2023.
Seventy-five years to kill the first 73,000. Twenty-seven months to kill the next 61,000.
The United States kills 1,100 people a year and prosecutes almost nobody. That's the domestic model. Israel perfected the export version.
The Architecture of Israel
The legal architecture is familiar.
In the United States, qualified immunity protects officers who kill. This is a judge-made doctrine, not a law passed by Congress. The Supreme Court invented it in 1967 and expanded it in 1982. Here's how it works: to sue an officer for violating your rights, you must prove that the exact conduct was already ruled unconstitutional in a prior case with nearly identical facts. If an officer kills you in a way that's slightly different from previous cases, they're immune. Courts have dismissed lawsuits because the prior case involved a different breed of dog, or because the victim was lying down instead of sitting. The result is a legal shield that protects almost any killing as long as it's creative enough to be "novel."
The Supremacy Clause shields federal agents from state prosecution. The "objectively reasonable" standard makes conviction nearly impossible.
Israel has its own version, and it's worth understanding the structure in American terms:
Mishtara (Israel Police): Normal cops. Think NYPD or LAPD. Inside Israel, they killed 14 citizens over five years, about 3 per year. Almost all victims were Arab. Almost European numbers. This is the face Israel shows the world.
IDF: The army. Like the US military, they're not supposed to operate domestically. But the occupied territories aren't "domestic" under Israeli law, so the army runs the show there.
Shin Bet (Shabak): Israel's FBI. Domestic intelligence, counterterrorism, interrogation. Between 2000 and 2011, they conducted 425 targeted killings, about 39 per year during the Second Intifada.[1] Of those killed, 41% were bystanders, not targets. They work with the Air Force on drone strikes. They've tortured thousands: 850 complaints filed, zero investigated.[2] In December 2023, the Shin Bet director announced they would kill Hamas leaders "in Gaza, West Bank, Lebanon, Turkey, Qatar, everywhere." Imagine the FBI director saying that on camera.
Magav (Border Police): This is the one with no American equivalent. Technically police, but they operate under IDF Central Command, which means political control. They're the enforcement arm: raids in Jenin, Nablus, Ramallah. The combat work. They're 22% of police personnel but do virtually all the killing in the territories. Hundreds per year. No prosecutions. If you combined ICE, the US Marshals, and a SWAT team, put them under Pentagon command, and told them the Constitution doesn't apply, you'd have Magav.
| Agency | American Equivalent | Killing Rate | Prosecution Rate |
|--------|---------------------|--------------|------------------|
| Mishtara | NYPD, LAPD | ~3/year | ~0% |
| IDF | US Army | Thousands (wartime) | 0% |
| Shin Bet | FBI | Dozens/year + 41% bystanders | 0% |
| Magav | ICE + Marshals + SWAT under Pentagon | Hundreds/year | 0% |
The civilian police are almost European. The army is the army. The FBI equivalent runs assassinations. And Magav, the enforcement arm under political command, does the daily killing in the territories.
Palestinians don't encounter Mishtara. They encounter Magav, Shin Bet, and the IDF. None answer to civilian courts. None face prosecution.
The legal architecture makes this explicit: Palestinians in the territories are subject to military law. Israeli settlers living on the same street are subject to civil law. Same road, different legal universes.
The result is the same: a population that can be killed without consequence.
In America, the victims are disproportionately Black and brown. In Israel, they're exclusively Arab. The mechanism is identical: define a population as outside the full protection of law, then act accordingly.
But the scale isn't comparable.
Black Americans are killed by police at 2.5 times the rate of white Americans.[3] That disparity is real and damning. But Black Americans are still citizens. They vote. They serve on juries. They can, in theory, become police chiefs and prosecutors and presidents. The system is biased against them, but they exist within it.
Palestinians in the occupied territories have none of that. No citizenship. No vote. No representation. No path to power. They exist entirely outside the system that governs their lives and deaths.
American police brutality is a civil rights crisis within a democracy. Israeli military violence is an occupation enforced by a democracy against people who have no democratic recourse whatsoever.
If you think the US has a problem with cops versus Black Americans, the IDF versus Arabs is on another level entirely. It's not a disparity within a system. It's a system designed to exclude.
This post is public. Share it with anyone who should see this.
The Numbers of Killed
In 2022, before October 7, Israeli security forces killed 146 Palestinians in the West Bank alone.[5] In 2021, they killed 313.[6] In 2019, 133, including 28 children.[7]
These weren't war years. These were "normal" years.
The rate works out to roughly 11-14 killed per 10 million people under Israeli security jurisdiction. That's between Canada and the United States on the international scale.
But that's the wrong denominator.
If you calculate the rate for Palestinians specifically (roughly 5 million in the West Bank and Gaza), the numbers look different:
| Population | Annual Deaths (pre-2023) | Rate per 10 Million |
|------------|--------------------------|---------------------|
| Japanese | 2 | 0.2 |
| British | 3 | 0.45 |
| German | 12 | 1.5 |
| American | 1,100 | 33.5 |
| Palestinian | 150-300 | 300-600 |
Palestinians are killed by Israeli security forces at 10-20 times the American rate. And the American rate is already 165 times Japan.
Get analysis like this delivered to your inbox.
Killed While Unarmed
The number that should end every debate: of 968 Palestinians killed by Israeli security forces in the West Bank between October 2023 and October 2025, almost half (449) were unarmed and "not involved in any violence or confrontation at the time of their killing."[8]
Unarmed means no firearms, no explosives, often simply present during a raid or checkpoint stop.
The B'Tselem database tracks every death.[9] The methodology is rigorous. They distinguish between those "participating in hostilities" and those who weren't. The data is clear: Israel routinely kills people who pose no threat.
Prosecution Rates (effectively zero)
In American numbers: fewer than 3% of police killings result in charges. Convictions are rarer still.
Israel's rate is worse.
In a five-year period from 2014 to 2019, Israeli police shot dead 14 Israeli citizens inside the Green Line in incidents not categorized as terrorism. The department tasked with investigating these killings closed all but two of the cases.[10] Almost all the victims were Arab.
For Palestinians in the occupied territories, the prosecution rate is effectively zero. The Israeli human rights organization Yesh Din found that 91% of investigations into IDF soldiers suspected of harming Palestinians were closed without indictment.[11]
Closed without indictment. The same phrase that follows American police shootings. The same result.
The Democracy Paradox
Israel looks like a democracy. It has elections, a free press, an independent judiciary, and robust civil society organizations that document abuses. B'Tselem exists. +972 Magazine publishes. Haaretz reports.
None of it matters.
The documentation is meticulous.
Democracy doesn't prevent state violence. It just provides better record-keeping. Israel documents its killings with German precision and prosecutes them with American indifference.
Institutions exist. They function. They produce reports. They provide transparency because they know it will make you more afraid and powerless.
Post-October 7
The Gaza war changed the scale but not the pattern.
Since October 7, 2023, Israeli forces have killed over 61,000 Palestinians in Gaza and more than 1,000 in the West Bank.[12] The UN reports that one in five West Bank victims is a child.[13]
You can argue about October 7. You can argue about Hamas. You can argue about self-defense and proportionality and the laws of war.
But you cannot argue that Israel prosecutes soldiers who kill civilians. It doesn't. The pattern from "normal" years, the 91% closure rate, the unarmed victims, the zero accountability, that pattern continued through the war. It accelerated.
America Exceptionally Exports Frameworks of Violence
This is what American impunity looks like when exported.
The United States provides Israel with $3.8 billion in military aid annually.[14] American weapons kill Palestinians. American legal doctrines justify it. American diplomatic cover protects it.
When Israeli soldiers kill unarmed Palestinians, they face the same accountability as American cops who kill unarmed Black men: internal investigation, case closed, no indictment.
Blackwater killed 17 Iraqis in Nisour Square and got pardoned. Israeli soldiers kill hundreds annually and aren't charged in the first place. The US kills 1,100 of its own citizens and prosecutes 3%.
Different scales. Same impunity. Same architecture.
Questions
If you were outraged by George Floyd, are you outraged by Jenin?
If you were outraged by Ashli Babbitt or Renee Good, are you outraged by Gaza?
If you believe federal agents shouldn't execute citizens without trial, do you believe that principle applies to occupied populations?
The consistent position is rare. Most people discover their principles have borders.
In the USA, we execute citizens in the street. We argue about whether they deserved it. We move on.
Israel does the same thing, on a larger scale, to a captive population with nowhere to move on to.
That isn't a flaw in the democracy. It is the design of the democracy.
The USA is its largest financial sponsor.
Notes
Notes
[1] "Targeted killing by Israel." Wikipedia. Documents 425 targeted killings by Shin Bet/IDF between September 2000 and August 2011, with 41% of those killed being civilian bystanders.
[2] "Shin Bet." Wikipedia. Documents Shin Bet's role in targeted killings and torture, noting 850 complaints of torture filed with zero investigations.
[3] "2025 Police Violence Report." Mapping Police Violence. Documents that Black Americans are 2.5 times more likely to be killed by police than white Americans.
[4] "134,000 Palestinians killed since 1948." Al Jazeera, November 2024. Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics cumulative total of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces since 1948.
[5] "The Occupied Territories in 2022." B'Tselem, January 2023. Documents 146 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank in 2022, the deadliest year since 2004.
[6] "2021 was the deadliest year since 2014." B'Tselem, January 2022. Documents 313 Palestinians killed including 71 minors.
[7] "The year in review: Israeli forces killed 133 Palestinians." B'Tselem, January 2020. Documents 133 Palestinians killed in 2019, including 28 minors.
[8] "Spike in Israeli lethal force against Palestinians in Occupied West Bank." Amnesty International, February 2024. Reports that of 968 Palestinians killed, almost half (449) were unarmed and not involved in any violence.
[9] "Statistics." B'Tselem. Comprehensive database tracking all fatalities in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since September 2000.
[10] "14 Israeli citizens gunned down by police in five years, not a single indictment." +972 Magazine. Documents that almost all victims were people of color and nearly all cases were closed without charges.
[11] "Law Enforcement on Israeli Soldiers Suspected of Harming Palestinians." Yesh Din, December 2022. Found that 91% of investigations into IDF soldiers suspected of harming Palestinians were closed without indictment.
[12] "Israel & Palestinian territories: number of fatalities." Statista. Tracks cumulative fatalities in the Gaza war since October 7, 2023.
[13] "UN Human Rights: 1001 Palestinians killed in West Bank since 7 October 2023." UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, October 2025. Reports one in five victims is a child.
[14] "U.S. Foreign Aid to Israel." Congressional Research Service. Documents $3.8 billion annual military aid commitment under 2016 Memorandum of Understanding.
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tatsuikeda.substack.com/subscribe