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Friday, 29 March. 2024
 
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On November 9, 2000, Israel’s policy of assassination became official. It was 42 days after the beginning of the Second Intifada, and Israel had just assassinated Hussein ‘Abaya, a Fateh activist. He was driving down a crowded central street in Beit Sahour, a town near Bethlehem, when an Israeli helicopter fired missiles on his jeep. Two innocent civilians were also killed and three injured. As of November 2000, it was official, but that did nothing to change the fact that Israel had actively been conducting assassinations for some 30 years prior.

As of June 3, 2003, 243 Palestinians had been killed in assassination operations since late September 2000. At least 100 of those were bystanders, and 31 were children. These numbers reveal that such operations are rarely ever precise.

Illegal under International Law

Assassination is not only contrary to Israeli law, it is also illegal under international law. According to the Geneva Conventions, an occupying power must protect the lives of the occupied people, and none can be considered legal targets unless they are directly taking part in hostile activities which are “in progress.” Under international law, there is no room for preventative killing – that is, killing a person suspected of engaging in hostile activities but who has not yet done so or is not in the process of doing so. Furthermore, international law does not allow killing as punishment. (Indeed, the State of Israel itself does not utilize the death penalty as a form of punishment.)

It is also requires that persons who are accused of hostile activities or who are suspected of conducting such activities must be lawfully tried by a court of law. Reports have shown that the Israeli military is entirely capable of arresting and if need be, prosecuting, those they typically target for extrajudicial killing. In other words, there is an alternative, and by not using it, it is a clear violation of the law. Moreover, because willful killing is a breach of the Geneva Conventions, those ordering or conducting assassinations must be brought to trial as war criminals.

Yet Israel defends its policy. In January 2001, Military Advocate General, Brigadier-General Menachem Finkelstein said, “The IDF has the legal right to fight ‘hostile elements’ in the Occupied Territories in exceptional and extraordinary cases, when the purpose is to save lives and in the absence of any other alternative.” The Attorney General has also supported Israel’s policy and suggested that the term “liquidation” ought to be replaced by “targeted killings” to make the policy sounds more acceptable. Even the Israeli High Court has dismissed two petitions about assassinations, stating that “the court does not usually render rulings on security matters.”

Assassinations are central to Israel’s policy toward the Palestinians. For example, on December 30, 2002, an 11-year-old Palestinian child was killed by Israeli soldiers in Tulkarem. Two more, one of them an AP photographer, were wounded in Rafah. In just this December 2002 alone, 13 Palestinian children had been killed by Israeli forces. Moreover, Israeli forces demolished five homes and threatened to demolish more. They also arrested seven citizens from Tulkarem and sieged Qalqilya and Hebron. With all this Israeli violence as a backdrop, on December 30, Ariel Sharon called for more assassinations by both the Israeli army and settlers, saying that they were within the construct of “preventative war.”

Nonetheless, the understanding of assassination as illegal remains certain, and it was recently confirmed by the president of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, who is a renowned expert on international humanitarian law. Professor Antonio Cassesse’s public findings show that assassination of civilians suspected of terrorist activities when they are not directly engaged in these activities violates the basic distinction between combatants and civilians, and therefore constitutes a war crime.

Implications of Israel’s Assassination Policy

Beyond the illegality of assassination, two other implications of the policy are important to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. First, it results not only in the death of the targeted suspect, which is illegal in and of itself, but also in the deaths of numerous innocent bystanders. Second, it has repeatedly been utilized by the Israeli government as a political tool of provocation. An examination of several incidents follows.

Abdallah Qawasmeh, June 21, 2003

When a Palestinian man dresses as an Orthodox Jew, enters a bus, and blows it up, he is called a terrorist. When a dozen Israeli “Yamam” (Israeli SWAT team) men disguise themselves as Palestinians driving a diaper van, for an illegal assassination operation, it is considered a permissible means of defense. This is what happened in June 2003, when Israeli forces killed senior Hamas leader Abdullah Qawasme in Hebron. An Israeli official’s response was that Qawasme’s death “only contributes to peace.”

No other lives were claimed that day by the Israeli SWAT team, but that is the exception rather than the rule. And still, less than 48 hours later Israeli forces targeted four more Palestinians in the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanoun; three additional people were wounded. The four victims were: Faker al-Za’aneen, 20, Mohammad al-Basioni, 23, Khaled al-Shinbari, 21, and Rushdi al-Za’aneen.

Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi, June 10, 2003

Israel’s assassinations have been known to occur in the midst of calm periods, and as such are provocations for more violence. For example, Israel’s attempted assassination of Hamas leader Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi broke a period of calm marked by international focus on resuming the peace process. It was widely condemned as an attempt to sabotage peace efforts. An attempt like this guarantees a response from Hamas, and it is naïve to suggest that Israeli officials did not anticipate such a response (a suicide bombing the next day, killing 16) when making the decision to conduct the operation at this moment in time.

Salah Shahadeh, July 23, 2002

One of the most abominable assassination operations by the Israelis was the summer 2002 bombing in Gaza to kill Salah Shahadeh. On July 23, an F-16 dropped a one-ton bomb on a crowded residential district in the Gaza Strip. Seventeen people were killed; nine of them were children. More than 70 other people were wounded. The next day Prime Minister Ariel Sharon called it "one of the most successful operations." It was confirmed that an agreement by Palestinian militant groups to end attacks on civilians was on the verge of being finalized when this bomb was dropped. Once again, such an indiscriminate act of violence was guaranteed to elicit a response, and indeed an Israeli car was later ambushed and one person was killed and another wounded.

Sa'ad al-Arabeed, April 8, 2002

The Israeli policy of extrajudicial killing is extraordinarily dangerous to innocent Palestinian civilians. For example, in April 2002, Israeli F16s targeted a car east of Gaza City. Hamas leader Al-Arabeed and his assistant were inside, and both were immediately killed. But that was not the end of it, because next an Israeli Apache gunship wantonly opened fire on crowds nearby, killing three adults and two children, and wounding 53 people, including 23 children. The killed were Ahmad al-Ashram, 13, Sami Qasim, 16, Omar Nasar, 21, Mohammad Basal, 20, and Mahmoud Farawna, 30.

Hasin Abu Quiq, March 2002

In March 2002, an Israeli tank fired at the car of Hasin Abu Quiq. He was not in it, but his wife and three children were, and they were all killed. Two innocent children nearby, aged 4 and 16, were also killed. Abu Quiq had been identified by the Israelis as a dangerous Hamas leader and for this they had gone after him. But it turned out in the end that the only charges levied against Abu Quiq were for selling Palestinian flags and supporting Hamas, hardly evidence of a “ticking bomb.” Regardless of whether a target is in fact responsible for Israeli deaths, it remains illegal extrajudicial killing.

Abu Ali Mustafa, August 27, 2001

On August 27, 2001 Abu Ali Mustafa was killed when two Israeli rockets hit the headquarters of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) in the West Bank city of Ramallah. Having helped to found the PFLP in 1967, Mustafa was the most senior Palestinian political leader to be assassinated to date. He had made his name as a representative for refugees, and in the first conference of the PFLP he was appointed deputy leader. Mustafa was later elected Secretary General of the PFLP. He was also member of the Palestinian National Council and the Central Palestinian Council of the PLO. His right to the due process of law was violated by the killing.

Jamal Mansour, 42, July 31, 2001

For two months, Hamas had obediently abided by a ceasefire. Then four Hamas activists were killed in Bethlehem, yet they still did not react. Then came an Israeli assassination on July 31. Targeting Hamas activist Jamal Mansour in the West Bank, Israeli Apache gunships fired missiles on the Palestinian Studies and Media Center in Nablus, killing Mansour plus seven other Palestinians, including two children. Israeli officials claimed that Mansour and other Hamas members were in the process of planning attacks in Israel when they fired. However, according to LAW (The Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights and the Environment), two journalists and a human rights activist were in the building interviewing Mansour at the time. Both journalists were killed, and the activist was critically injured. Moreover, the respected human rights organization Amnesty International confirmed that Jamal Mansour was a Hamas leader in the political, not military wing, and that he was a journalist and publicist. Two boys, aged 5 and 8, who were waiting for their mother outside the building, were killed by the blast.

Even the United States responded to this assassination, with Press Secretary Ari Fleishcher accusing Israel of violating the ceasefire: "Violence is violence, and the president has deplored the violence in the region." Given Hamas’s adherence to the ceasefire for two months prior, there is no question that this assassination is an example of Israel’s use of assassinations as a blatant provocation method.

Mustafa Youssef Hussein Yassin, July 23, 2001

This time Israeli special forces disguised themselves as Palestinian chicken salesmen and approached the victim’s house in Jenin. They claimed he was an Islamic Jihad activist who had overseen a suicide bombing that same morning in Haifa. They shot Yassin in cold blood in front of his house, but afterwards it was discovered that Yassin had nothing to do with the bombing. This incident exemplifies the speed with which Israel makes the decision to assassinate.

Mahmud Abu Hannoud, May 18, 2001

A failed assassination attempt can be a dangerous thing. And it was for eleven policemen in the West Bank prison where Mahmud Abu Hannoud was being held. They were all killed when an Israeli F-16 fighter jet bombed a Nablus prison. They killed were: Khaled Mohammed Subu, 21, Ayman Ahmed Mohammed Khalil, 25, Rifat Haydar Rabaya, 34, Nasri Nasser Hassan Yacoub, 22, Mutez Najeh Sakher Al Kahteeb, 23, Fadi Said Abdel Rahem Sad, 23, Ahmed Khaled Sadeeq Khadr, 25, Wael Odeh Abdel Karim Abu Khadr, 29, Fahd Khalaf Beni Odeh, 19, Rami Saleh Abdel Aziz Yassin, 20, and Nabil Issam Ahmed Ismail, 22.

Thabet Ahmad Thabet, December 31, 2000

On December 31, 2000, a 50-year old dentist, Dr. Thabet Thabet was gunned down as he left his home for work. Over 20 bullets hit Dr. Thabet, yet Israel tried to deny the assassination at first. Then, when it acknowledged the killing, a senior official explained, “We attack terrorists who set out to shoot at [civilians]; we identify the heads of squads and district commanders, and attack them. This activity frightens and quiets a village; and as a result, there are regions in which [operatives] are afraid of undertaking activities.” Yet Thabet Ahmad Thabet was a senior official in the Palestinian Ministry of Health and secretary general of Fateh in Tulkarem, both clearly civilian posts. In addition to being illegal, Israel’s policy of assassinations is too often misplaced.

Sources:


abcnews.go.com
www.arabicnews.com
www.alternativenews.org/
www.btselem.org
www.independent.co.uk/
www.news.bbc.co.uk
www.pchrgaza.org
www.phrmg.org
Reuters
“Shadow Report to the United Nations Human Rights Committee (HRC) Regarding the Report of the State of Israel Concerning the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,”
Coordinated and edited by the Palestinian Independent Commission for Citizen’s Right (PICCR), the National Human Rights Institution of Palestine, March 2003.
“The Israeli Assassination Policy in the Aqsa Intifada,” Dr. Saleh Abdel-Jawad, Jerusalem Media & Communications Center. November 2001.

 
 
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