HTML clipboard
| PCHR Palestinian Centre for Human Rights PRESS RELEASE |
Ref: 135/2005
Date: 09 November 2005
Time: 12:15 GMT
Israel Vows to Continue Extra-Judicial Executions
Statements of the Israeli Prime Minster and the Israeli Military Chief of Staff that Israel will continue to carry out “targeted killing” against Palestinian political and field activists prove that the Israeli political and military establishments insist to continue to commit war crimes against Palestinian civilians.
The Israeli Prime Minster Ariel Sharon and the Israeli Military Chief of Staff Dan Halutz vowed, at a meeting of the Committee of Foreign and Defence Affairs at the Israeli Knesset on Tuesday, 8 November 2005, to continue with the policy of carrying out extra-judicial executions. The Israeli daily newspaper Ha’aretz quoted Major General Halutz as saying that the policy of “targeted killing [the term used by Israel to describe extra-judicial executions against Palestinians] proved its efficiency in deterring terrorist activities,” and that it would “focus on members of Islamic Jihad.” The newspaper also quoted Sharon as saying that “targeted killing and military pressure on terrorist organizations will continue.”
Extra-judicial executions constitute the most blatant form of willful killing committed by Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) against Palestinian civilians, predetermined and approved by the Israeli political and judiciary establishments. Israel uses the term “targeted killing” to describe this type of crime. It claims that it targets wanted persons, who pose a threat to the security of the State of Israel, when it fails to arrest them from inside areas controlled by the Palestinian National Authority. Extra-judicial executions involve executing a person without trial and without allowing him/her to defend him/herself and as such constitute a war crime under the Fourth Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War of 1949. This policy also violates international human rights law, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of 1966.
Such crimes are committed without taking into consideration that they may also threaten the lives of non-targeted Palestinian civilians. There are many instances in which IOF targeted and executed a person or a number of persons, without taking into consideration the lives of other people who were present at the scene. For example, on 27 October 2005, an IOF aircraft launched missiles at a civilian car, in which 4 persons, including a member of the Islamic Jihad, were traveling near the entrance to Jabalya refugee camp. The four passengers and 3 passing children were killed, and 19 others, including 7 children, were injured.
According to PCHR’s documentation, since the beginning of the current Palestinian Intifada in September 2000, IOF have extra-judicially executed 490 Palestinians, including 169 civilian bystanders. This figure includes 54 children.
PCHR strongly condemns the statements of the Israeli Prime Minster and Chief of Staff, and calls upon the international community, particularly the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, to take effective steps to force Israel to stop this type of crime, which is considered a war crime under international humanitarian law.
************************
For more information please call: +972 (0)- 8 – 2824776 – 2825893.*
*Office Hours are between 0800 – 1600 hours (0500 GMT – 1300 GMT) Sun – Thurs.
……………………………………………………………
Palestinian Centre for Human Rights
29 Omer El Mukhtar St., El Remal, PO Box 1328 Gaza, Gaza Strip tel/fax: +972 (0)8 282 4776 – 282 5893
email: [email protected] website: www.pchrgaza.org
