OCCUPIED JERUSALEM: An Israeli rights group says authorities only bring indictments in about one in 10 ideologically-motivated attacks by Israelis against Palestinians in the occupied territories.

In an annual report published on Sunday, Yesh Din says it has monitored 225 investigation files since 2014.

Of the 185 files processed, it says just 21 have resulted in indictments — an 11.4 per cent rate.

Though the figures mark an increase over previous years, the group says its findings still show that Israel “fails to fulfil its duty to guarantee the safety of the Palestinian public in the occupied territories.”

As a result, it says Palestinians have been increasingly refraining from turning to police.

Yesh Din is often critical of Israeli authorities and government policies in the West Bank. Israeli police had no immediate comment.

Rare site

Separately, Israeli archaeologists announced they have uncovered a rare site dating back some half a million years — just next to a modern highway and only several metres underground.

Archaeologists envision the site at Jaljulia, northeast of Tel Aviv, as a sort of “paradise” for prehistoric hunter-gatherers, with a stream, vegetation and an abundance of animals.

They have uncovered hundreds of flint handaxes as part of the dig just next to Route 6, one of Israel’s busiest highways, the Israel Antiquities Authority said.

“It’s hard to believe that between Jaljulia and highway 6, five metres below the surface, an ancient landscape some half of a million years old has been so amazingly preserved,” Ran Barkai, head of Tel Aviv University’s archaeology department, which participated in the dig, said in a statement.

He added that “for people, it was like a paradise, so they came here again and again.”

The site is associated with homo erectus, a direct ancestor of today’s humans.

The dig began at the site squeezed between Jaljulia and the highway because of construction plans for the area, which required archaeological approval beforehand, the antiquities authority said.

According to the authority, prehistoric humans may have returned to the area as part of a seasonal cycle.