Ref: 41/2006
Date: 03 August 2006
PCHR Publishes Report on the Israeli Policy of Extra-Judicial Executions against Palestinians
PCHR has published a new report on extra-judicial executions perpetrated by Israeli Occupation Forces against Palestinians (IOF) from the beginning of the al-Aqsa Intifada in September 2000 until the end of July 2006. The report, titled “Israeli Policy of Extra-Judicial Executions: Systematic State Terrorism”, has documented at least 252 extra-judicial executions, which have killed 603 Palestinians (approximately 20% of the total number of Palestinians killed by IOF during the current Intifada). This number includes 391 targeted persons, and 212 civilian bystanders, including 68 children. In the West Bank, 224 targeted persons and 72 civilian bystanders have been killed, whereas in the Gaza Strip, 167 targeted persons and 140 civilian bystanders have been killed.
PCHR believes that such crimes constitute field executions against Palestinians, which are encouraged by the political and judiciary establishments in Israel. Thus, they are a form of state terrorism practiced by Israel. Such crimes violate the international law, particularly the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War. PCHR’s report emphasizes that even though the Israeli government has sought since the beginning of the current Palestinian Intifada to deceive the international community as if it was in an “armed conflict” that justifies killing whoever attacks Israelis, this situation does not in anyway justify extra-judicial executions against Palestinians. Article 1 of the Principles on the Effective Prevention and Investigation of
Extra-legal, Arbitrary and Summary Executions of 1989 prescribes that: “Governments shall prohibit by law all extra-legal, arbitrary and summary executions and shall ensure that any such executions are recognized as offences under their criminal laws, and are punishable by appropriate penalties which take into account the seriousness of such offences. Exceptional circumstances including a state of war or threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency may not be invoked as a justification of such executions.”
Israel claims that it targets those who plan or launch “terrorist” attacks on Israeli targets. PCHR’s report asserts that such accusations are not based on any legal evidence, expect some ambiguous indications to the activities of a targeted person, which can never be legal evidences. Even at the procedural level, such crimes are unjustifiable, as IOF have the military force that allow them to move into Palestinian communities and arrest and interrogate any Palestinian. PCHR’s report manifests the deterioration in the moral structure of Israel, and the failure of Israeli leaders to distinguish themselves as leaders of a state that is supposed to be democratic and committed to international human rights, from leaders of a terrorist organization that adopts the rule of jungles and commits killing as a job and philosophy that establish its moral identity.
The deterioration in the moral structure of Israel, in addition to the international silence towards Israeli crimes against Palestinians, have encouraged Israel to act as a state above the law, in a way that has lead to an escalation in extra-judicial executions against Palestinians, including senior political leaders. The international community is called for, more than ever before, to meet its legal and moral obligations and immediately intervene to provide protection for Palestinian civilians and implement the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
Note: PCHR has published the report in Arabic only, and it will be available in English soon.
