Since the recent Intifada (Uprising) began in September 2000, the Israeli occupation forces have carried out 78 assassination operations (extra-judicial killings).

These operations have lead to the death of 134 Palestinians.

93 Palestinians were specifically 'targeted' persons.

41 Palestinians were innocent bystanders.

Among the innocent bystanders, 11 were children.

With regards to gender, 10 females were among the bystanders of which 6 were young girls.

Moreover, these operations have injured 126 Palestinians.

109 Palestinians injured were bystanders.

17 Palestinians injured were specifically 'targeted'.

Beyond the physical injuries and loss of life, extensive damage has been caused to several civil buildings as well as private property.

Source: The Palestinian Center for Human Rights, Gaza
Email: pchr@pchrgaza.org

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.

The fragile truce that was declared by both Israeli and Palestinian officials at the Sharm el Sheikh summit on February 8 has officially been broken by the state of Israel. At the summit, both President Mahmoud Abbas and Ariel Sharon had unilaterally declared a cessation of all acts of violence.

Since the ceasefire was agreed upon and the subsequent period of relative calm, Israel gradually increased its long list of continued human rights violations against the Palestinian people. According to the Palestine Monitoring Group (PMG), the Israeli army killed 19 Palestinians of whom eight were children, and injured 238 people during the period since February 8. Furthermore, 185 Palestinians have been physically assaulted, 754 Palestinians have been arrested and over 200 Palestinian homes completely or partially demolished by Israeli armed forces.

Yesterday, the Israeli army launched its first air strike on Gaza since the ceasefire was declared. The air offensive was launched by the Israeli army under the usual pretext of security, self-defense and a balanced response in order to protect the citizens of Israel; after Palestinian militants fired three home-made Qassam rockets and mortars into nearby Israeli villages. No one was reported injured by the Qassam attacks. A Hamas spokesperson said the Qassam rockets and mortars were fired in response to the Israeli killing of Omar Mutei Assrawe, 25, at the Al- Kufrayat military roadblock near Tulkarem in the northern West Bank.

The Israeli army’s attack claimed the life of Ahmad Shehwan, who was killed during a patrol when a grenade or explosive device was launched by soldiers. In an interview with Israeli public radio, deputy defense minister Zeev Boim said, “We must act in a more aggressive manner than we have so far.”

MIFTAH, calls on the international community not to stand idle in the face of Israel’s continued human rights violations. Since the Sharm el Sheikh summit, Israel has pledged to ease many restrictions forcefully imposed on Palestinians as well as to refrain from incursions and the usual policy of targeted killings. Furthermore, MIFTAH would like to warn the international community of the dangerous and insightful statements made by the Israeli defense Minister Shaul Mofaz when he said, “the Israel army has been given instructions to target all Palestinians involved in any resistance acts.” Such statements are everything but conducive to peace. It is time for Israeli officials to pursue a policy of peace-making with their Palestinian counterparts.

The Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy, MIFTAH, is a non-governmental, non-partisan Jerusalem-based institution dedicated to fostering democracy and good governance within Palestinian society through promoting public accountability, transparency, the free flow of information and ideas and the challenging of stereotyping at home and abroad.

Last week, Israel barred a UNESCO fact-finding mission from entering the country, charging that the Palestinians had ‘politicized’ the mission before it had even arrived. The mission was tasked with looking into conditions of historical sites in the Old City of Jerusalem, something Israel apparently found to be very threatening.

Looking at the state of Jerusalem’s eastern sector today, it is understandable why Israel would not want UNESCO or anyone else walking around the Old City, especially the Palestinian-populated parts of it. Because anyone who does, will see the devastation that Israel and its settlers have wreaked on one of the oldest and most beautiful cities in the world.

Excavation works are being conducted in and around the Aqsa Mosque to make way for more Jewish construction at the place where Waqf authorities say Ottoman and Abbasid artifacts have long been tucked away. A Muslim graveyard is being dug up just outside the Old City’s Jaffa Gate, to build – ironically – a museum of tolerance. Today, two stores were forcefully taken over by Jewish settlers in Al Hakari, one of the neighborhoods in the Muslim quarter and every day, it seems that more and more homes are either being demolished by Israeli municipality authorities or being taken over by Jewish settlers.

The “Judiazation” of Jerusalem is a term many Palestinians and Arabs use for what Israel is doing in the city. In a nutshell, it is the long-term plan Israel is gradually carrying out to change the Arab Palestinian character of Jerusalem. This means demolishing old and historical structures, displacing Palestinians, handing over their homes to settlers and trying to erase the Palestinian or Arab history of the city.

The sad truth is that, on the surface, Israel has succeeded in this to a large extent. Pockets of Jewish settlers now live in the heart of Muslim quarters and aim to take over more and more. Sheikh Jarrah, one of the more affluent Palestinian neighborhoods of Jerusalem, is now pierced with Jewish flags waving from homes that have been wrestled from their Palestinian owners, and Israel’s light rail train cuts right down through Palestinian neighborhoods outside of the city center. The train, of course, is not meant to service the Palestinian population but rather to connect Jewish neighborhoods and settlements in the city, but the area confiscated from Shufat and Beit Hanina for its construction simply fell into the plan.

What the UNESCO mission would not have seen even if they made it into the Old City is the overall humiliation that the Palestinian population of Jerusalem must endure on a daily basis because of Israel’s military occupation. Trips to the Israeli ministry of interior must be made just to prove that one lives in the city for fear that their residency rights may be revoked; young Palestinian men are stopped randomly by Israeli soldiers to check their ID cards or just to harass them, and settlers are always given the luxury of maximum security whenever they walk the streets. If settlers want to march through the city, the Palestinians are told to close their shops, are barred for hours from reaching their homes if they run along the path of the march and are always the ones blamed if any kind of confrontation between the two sides breaks out.

Jerusalem is being squeezed by these measures more and more each day. But there is always that glimmer of hope, that strength that shines through proving that all is not lost. On Shavuot, Israeli settlers and extremists poured into the Old City, singing loudly, banging on the shop doors and waving huge Israeli flags. The sight was disconcerting to say the least. However, the afternoon of that same day, at Damascus Gate, passersby were met with a completely different scene. Palestinian flags waved in determined Palestinian hands under the threatening eye of heavily armed Israeli police and soldiers. The youths were fearless, demanding freedom, with strong, unrelenting voices.

The sight of the Palestinian flag waving at the entrance to Damascus Gate was a breath of fresh air. All is not lost and never will be because hope is eternal and determination and strength come from a never-ending spring.

That day at Damascus Gate is what all Palestinians must keep in their minds’ eye in spite of the daily oppression of the occupation. No matter how many missions Israel bars from entering or how many houses it takes over, there will always be those brave souls who, despite the risks, will always raise Palestine’s flag.

Joharah Baker is a Writer for the Media and Information Department at the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH). She can be contacted at mid@miftah.org.

There is no point falling into the pit of countering the claims being made about the death of Mohammed Al Durra, the 12-year old boy from Gaza whose videotaped killing was seen around the world. The boy, crouching in fear behind is equally afraid father as bullets whizzed around them, was killed admittedly by the Israeli army. Later, the army recanted after investigating the tape, saying Durra was killed by Palestinian fire instead. Well now, Israel is changing its story altogether, saying he was not killed at all. In fact, he was probably not even wounded and the French channel that broadcast the footage and brought some pretty bad rap to Israel, had most likely filmed a charade.

The reason why I will not waste my time countering this claim is that even with the great lengths the Israeli government went to to prove that the boy was never killed, it could not provide any irrefutable proof that Mohammed Al Durra – who would be 25 now – is still alive. No pictures, no testimonies, no hospital or morgue officials giving statements to refute his death, have been provided. Only sketchy information about ‘poor quality footage’ and the fact that it seems as though the boy moved his arm after he had slumped over his father following the explosion.

My point is this: indeed, Mohammed Durra’s death was at least one of the catalysts that fueled the second Intifada, and thus, was an important event in the history of the Palestinians. However, more importantly – most importantly to me –is the fact that this is about a boy who died in sheer terror, with his distraught father futilely trying to shelter him from the barrage of bullets coming their way.

Mohammed Al Durra was a boy, with a life, a family and friends. He died a horrible death and now he is being made to die a second one. I did not know Mohammed or his family, but I can only imagine how awful it must be for them to read these claims now and feel the pain of losing their child all over again. If nothing else, this is disrespect for human life of the worst kind.

Some may postulate that the rehashing of the Durra case is a personal jab at the French cameraman who shot the footage, Charles Enderlin. Perhaps. But as a Palestinian who has seen the pain endured by numerous families who receive the horrible news that their sons or daughters have been killed by the Israeli army, my concern is for his family and for his memory. He should be left to rest in peace. If Israel has axes to grind with French journalists or with the international community for holding it accountable for its actions, then so be it. Israel is not lacking in the public relations department.

That being said, there is just one decent thing left to do. Leave Mohammed Al Durra and his memory alone.

Joharah Baker is a Writer for the Media and Information Department at the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH). She can be contacted at mid@miftah.org.

This week Palestinians will commemorate Al Nakba, the catastrophe that befell the Palestinian people when Israel was founded. Every year, Palestinians hang placards pointing to the right of return, they carry keys symbolizing the homes they were forced to leave and could not return to and remember the Palestine that was lost to them 65 years ago.

This year will be no different. Every May 15, Palestinian recall their catastrophe and demand justice. They demand that they are granted the right of return for those who were made refugees virtually overnight and were then relegate to a life they did not choose. But more than anything, they demand recognition of the tragedy that befell them rather than a denial that it ever happened, or worse, that it was of their own making.

It has been 65 years since Israel was established in 1948, which means those who were cast into exile are either very old or have long passed. Those who experienced the Nakba are now few and far between, clinging to those few precious memories of a small garden in front of their house in Jaffa or of the salty smell of the sea in their neighborhood in Haifa. The rest of us are either descendants of these refugees or ordinary Palestinians who feel their cause is our cause because we are one people.

But the Palestinians have made one thing clear. The refugee issue will not die with the last refugee. It is felt nationwide, the loss, the injustice and the fact that those who were forced from their homes have mostly passed, longing for their beloved homes.

We cannot turn back time. What was lost has been altered, destroyed, changed or taken over by Israel’s newcomers. What we can do is hold on to the right to be recognized, for the injustice to be rectified in word and deed and for Palestine to never be lost in our minds or hearts.

Joharah Baker is a Writer for the Media and Information Department at the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH). She can be contacted at mid@miftah.org.