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Israel disguises assassinations as crossfire attempted arrests
TEL AVIV - An Israeli human rights group accused the Israeli army on Wednesday of carrying out targeted killings disguised as attempted arrests. A report published by B'Tselem said that of 89 Palestinians killed in 2004 during actions, which Israel described as arrest operations, 43 were not armed, or were armed but did not attempt to use their weapons against the soldiers trying to arrest them.
The report, titled "Take No Prisoners", charges that the alleged lack of a gunbattle in those 43 cases implies a premeditated intention to kill the pursued militants, rather than arrest them. The Israeli army vehemently denied the allegations. A statement admitted the army carried out three targeted killings in the West Bank in the past year, against more than 3,000 arrest operations.
The B'Tselem report details four examples of Palestinians killed during arrest operations. The first two cases describe how two Palestinians, one of them a wanted militant, the other the brother of a wanted militant, were shot dead at their doorsteps even though they were unarmed. The shootings happened after Israeli soldiers surrounded their houses and called on them to open the door. | "Come on out, we just want to talk to you about a cache of hidden arms" |
In both cases, B'Tselem's investigation was based on one indirect witness, the first on the account of the victim's mother, the second on that of the militant's wife. | Truely un-biased sources, you might even say they are "Newsweek worthy". |
The other two cases describe how Israeli soldiers shot dead wanted Palestinians who had already surrendered, one of them after he was injured. | "Wasn't us, he just got caught in a "crossfire" when a cadre of his friends tried to spring him." |
The report quotes one direct and three indirect eyewitness, all of them Palestinian passersby. | Ah, the fabled passersby. Totally reliable, it must be true. |
Posted by: Steve 2005-05-25 |
