|
Israel Admits To Assassinating Palestinians
WASHINGTON & JERUSALEM (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The Washington Post reported Monday that in a recent meeting of the Israeli foreign affairs and defense committee, Prime Minister Ehud Barak admitted publicly after two months of “coy nondenials,” that the Israeli government was conducting targeted assassinations against top Palestinian officials.
Israel’s policy of systematically targeting and killing Palestinians it deems to be security threats is current policy now being confirmed by the government.
Some members of the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, in clear opposition to the policy, attempted to convince Barak to end the targeted assassinations, but the pleas have fallen on deaf ears.
The Post states that Israel has always had a policy of selectively assassinating known activists. However, the current manifestation of the policy targets not only those who are active leaders, but those who coordinate and direct others to become active as well.
There is no accurate count on numbers of assassinated Palestinians, as the military and government rarely admit to specific killings. Some Israeli peace activists limit the number to eight or nine, but Palestinians and other sources say the number is more likely closer to 20, and possibly as high as 30.
“It’s got to stop immediately, very simply put, for three reasons,” said Naomi Chazan, a member of the leftist Meretz party.
“It’s totally illegal according to any international criteria or law. Number two, its immoral. And number three, because it’s stupid…. It’s really a totally untenable and unacceptable policy.”
“We told that to the prime minister,” she added, but “he disagreed.”
Since the beginning of the Palestinian uprising on September 29th, more than 360 people have been killed, with most of the victims Palestinian - many of them teenage boys. The deaths include not only numerous young Palestinians, but active senior leaders as well, causing great controversy for Israel, and leaving the U.N. Security Council criticizing Israel for its use of excessive force.
Besides targeted assassinations, some Palestinians have been killed by air-to-surface rockets launched from Israeli helicopters; such as Hussein Abayat, a Palestinian militia leader who died along with a colleague on November 9th when a missile was fired into his pickup truck.
Samih Malabi, a Fatah activist from the Kalandia refugee camp outside Ramallah, was killed after a booby-trapped mobile phone exploded as he answered a call. Israeli army officials denied carrying out that attack, but Palestinians list his death as another in a string of assassinations.
Palestinians have threatened revenge after each assassination, and for weeks have been firing on Jewish settlers driving deserted roads in the West Bank and Gaza.
The Washington Post quoted Abdul Jawad Saleh, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, who called the Israeli assassination policy “an inhuman violation and contravention of human rights and the Geneva convention. These are extrajudicial executions. It’s frightening from the aspect that no one is protected from these assassinations. It’s disgusting.”
Some Israelis, though, are also openly criticizing the assassination policy.
“It’s quite clear to me that this is completely criminal,” said Moshe Negbi, a journalist and commentator. “It’s a crime under international law, and it’s a crime under Israeli law. I think everybody involved - the officers who give this command and the soldiers who carry it out - are committing murder.”
The latest victim of Israel’s policy of targeting and killing Palestinians include Thabet Thabet, a well-known figure to Israeli peace activists. He had long been active in trying to foster reconciliation between Palestinians and Israelis. But to the Israeli military, Thabet was a senior local leader of Yasser Arafat’s Fatah political faction and was accused of plotting attacks against Israelis in the Tulkarm area of the West Bank where he lived.
But in Israel’s view, Thabet was a dangerous activist and so, witnesses said, a team of Israeli soldiers using long-range machine guns assassinated him with surgical precision as he was leaving his home on New Year’s Eve.
|
