Murder as state policy

The right-wing Likud regime of Ariel Sharon has intensified and openly justified the policy of "targeted killings" in blatant violation of all relevant legal statutes, Israeli and international.

HUSSEIN ABAYAT, a Fatah activist, was driving his jeep through a crowded street of Beit Sahour near Bethlehem when it was hit by an anti-tank missile fired from an Israeli military helicopter. Abayat was killed on the spot. Two women bystanders too were killed and three others were injured. The attack on November 9, 2000, about two months after the Al Aqsa Intifada began with the then Opposition leader Ariel Sharon's deliberately provocative visit to the Haram al Sharif in Jerusalem on September 29, marked the beginning of Israel's policy of "targeted killings".

In essence, the so-called targeted killings - illegal acts, better known in international law as summary or arbitrary executions or extra-judicial killings - are part of a wide repertoire of state-sponsored terror tactics employed by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF), the Shin Bet and the Mossad to debilitate and destroy the Palestinian people's resistance to the illegal occupation of their land.

Estimates vary about the number of fatalities and those injured in such attacks. The Annual Report for 2003 of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) observed that 327 Palestinians were killed in a total of 160 assassination operations carried out by the Israeli security forces between September 29, 2000, and December 31, 2003. Of those killed, 129 persons, including 41 minors, 14 women and 15 elderly people, were non-targeted civilians. A total of 799 persons were injured in such attacks, 706 of them non-targeted civilians.

The Israeli human rights organisation B'Tselem estimates that between September 29, 2000, and March 10, 2004 about 135 Palestinians were arbitrarily executed by Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPTs). In addition, 90 innocent bystanders were killed in the course of such operations, 28 of them minors. (B'Tselem adds that in the same period, 2,397 Palestinians, including those who lost their lives in "targeted assassinations", were killed by the Israeli forces in the OPTs, and 460 of them were minors.) Given the state of siege prevailing in the OPTs it is only natural that precise figures are hard to come by. But this does not in any way obfuscate the fact that a substantial number of Palestinians, both targeted and non-targeted, have died in such brutal acts of terror.

Those who have been targeted included activists and leaders of the Fatah, the Hamas, the Islamic Jehad, Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). Prominent among them are Hamas leaders Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi, Ismail Abu Shanab and Yasser Taha, Fatah leader Dr.Thabat Ahmad Thabat and PFLP leader Abu Ali Mustafa.

Although "targeted killings" were first consecrated as official policy by the government led by Ehud Barak, they were intensified and promoted openly by the right-wing Likud regime of Ariel Sharon. The Sharon government's statements following such attacks - for instance, after the assassination of Yassin on March 22, Sharon said that the Hamas leader was "marked for death" - are often reminiscent of claims and counter-claims made by rival gangster groups after shootouts involving their members. A 2002 report, jointly produced by the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel and LAW-The Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights and the Environment (PCATI-LAW), notes that the illegal policy has the approval of various organs and personalities of the Israeli state such as the Chief of Staff, the Military Advocate-General and the Attorney-General.

In January 2000, the Israeli daily Haaretz quoted a high-ranking IDF official as having told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee: "The liquidation of wanted persons is proving itself useful... this activity paralyses and frightens entire villages and as a result there are areas where people are afraid to carry out hostile activities." The PCATI-LAW report quotes Haaretz and Jerusalem Post to point out that even the Israeli Jewish religious leadership has justified it as part of a "war of commandment". The policy is also endorsed by large sections of Israeli society. The Peace Index Project is a periodic survey conducted since 1994 by the Tami Steinmetz Centre for Peace Research at Tel Aviv University to gauge the Israeli public's mood regarding important issues of the day. In a survey conducted in September 2003, it was found that 75 per cent of the country's Jewish people supported "targeted killings", as opposed to 19 per cent who were against it.

"Targeted killings" have been carried out using snipers, anti-tank missiles like Hellfire fired from United States-made Apache and Cobra combat helicopters, ground-to-ground missiles, tanks, and explosives planted in cars or public telephone booths. In fact, news reports suggest that Israel may have developed weapons specifically meant to be used in assassinations. The Editor of Jane's Air-Launched Weapons told The Guardian on March 25 that Hellfire anti-tank missiles were not suitable for such attacks because they were "specific for killing tanks". Since Hellfire is a "top attack" weapon meant to land on top of a tank, its weakest part, it cannot be used to hit people on the streets. He said that Israel might be using Spike or Lahat missiles, both made by Israeli companies. While a Spike anti-tank missile is guided to its target via a fibre-optic cable making it more accurate in assassination attempts, Lahats can be used for both top and direct attacks and are accurate up to 72 cm.

Significantly, though it lacked the status of an official and declared policy until the beginning of the Al Aqsa Intifada, "targeted killings" carried out by IDF personnel and Mossad and Shin Bet operatives can be traced back to the early 1970s. In 1973, in Beirut, Israeli commandos assassinated members of the group that kidnapped and murdered Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. One of the commandos involved in the operation was Ehud Barak. In April 1988, Israeli agents assassinated Khalil al-Wazir or Abu Jihad, one of the founders of the Fatah. In February 1992, Hizbollah secretary-general Sheikh Abbas Musawi was killed in a helicopter attack in South Lebanon.

In October 1995, Islamic Jehad leader Fathi Shakaki was assassinated by Mossad operatives in Malta. In the early 1990s, an undercover unit called the Musta'ribeen was established with the official mission of arresting "wanted" Palestinians. In reality, the Musta'ribeen is a death squad that executes rather than captures "wanted" Palestinians. For instance, on November 19, 2002, Musta'ribeen personnel disguised as Arabs entered Tulkarem district during the occasion of Iftar in the month of Ramazan and shot dead Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade leader Tareq Zaghal and four civilians.

THE PCATI-LAW report points out that "targeted killings" violate all relevant laws, both Israeli and international. Although Palestinians in the OPTs, except those in East Jerusalem, do not fall within the purview of Israeli criminal law, it is applicable in the case of IDF personnel in every area of their operation. In fact, the Israeli Penal Code unambiguously terms assassinations "pre-meditated murder". Israel is also bound by two systems of international law: the laws of war and occupation, or international humanitarian law; and international human rights law. One of the foundational principles of international humanitarian law, which comprises the Hague Convention of 1907 and its annexed regulations, and the four Geneva Conventions of 1949, is that the "Occupying Power" (in this case, Israel) should respect the fundamental rights of civilians in the occupied territories and that combatants should not be harmed when they are hors de combat.

The report notes that the international human rights law clearly declares as illegal any violation of the right to life, the "supreme right", and fair trial. Israeli actions are illegal even if the exceptions laid down in law to the right to life are considered. Limitations to the right to life are applicable in cases where a person is sentenced to death after a free and fair trial by an authorised court; if death is the result of use of force that is "absolutely necessary" and "proportional" to the danger for which it is used; and cases in which killing is unintentional.

A PCATI-LAW petition claiming that the policy is illegal under international law and that it be halted is currently pending before the Israeli High Court of Justice. In July 2003, the court dismissed the request of the petitioners to issue a temporary injunction prohibiting the assassinations and granted the respondents (the Israeli government, the Prime Minister, the IDF and others) 60 days to reply to the arguments of the petitioners. The court is expected to deliver its final verdict in a few months' time. In January 2002, the same court had dismissed two other petitions challenging the legality of the policy.