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Israeli Soldiers Admit Killing Innocent Cops
Hisham Abu Taha, Arab News  It's official — Israel murdered 15 innocent Palestinian policemen in retaliation for the deaths of six soldiers in an attack by Fatah gunmen three years ago. The report in the Maariv newspaper, confirmed by senior Israeli security sources, was the latest public challenge to the Jewish state's official insistence that its forces have abided by a strict code of ethics in battling the Palestinian intifada.After gunmen from the Palestinian faction Fatah killed six soldiers at a checkpoint outside the West Bank city of Ramallah on Feb. 19, 2002, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon approved stepping up the scale and variety of retaliations. "The feeling was that this would be 'an eye for an eye'," an ex-soldier who took part in the shooting spree told Maariv. Eighteen Palestinians were killed in various retaliatory attacks, including 15 policemen shot while manning their checkpoints near Ramallah and Nablus, another West Bank city. "'We are going to liquidate Palestinian policemen at a checkpoint in revenge for our six soldiers that they killed'," the ex-commando quoted his commander as ordering the troops. At one of three checkpoints raided the Palestinians managed to return fire, but caused no Israeli casualties, Maariv said. "The moment we knew we were going to eliminate them, we no longer saw them as human," another former commando said. Hours after the death of the six Israeli soldiers at a West Bank checkpoint called Ein Arik, the commander of an elite reconnaissance unit, "Yael," assembled his soldiers and told them that they were being asked to avenge the six combat engineers, a staff sergeant in the Yael unit, who was only identified as D, told Maariv. Another soldier in the unit, identified as R., said the commander told them they would be targeting a Palestinian police post. "He said that our mission was to get there and kill them," Maariv quoted the soldier as saying. The two soldiers said their unit attacked a Palestinian post north of the town of Ramallah. R. said seven or eight men were at the post, drinking coffee, and that only two were in uniform and armed. After soldiers opened fire on the post, the Palestinians scattered, and only three remained in shooting range. "We began to liquidate them," said R., adding that soldiers pumped one Palestinian policeman full of bullets after he had already been fatally hit. The newspaper said at least two Palestinian police were killed. A paratrooper reconnaissance unit, meanwhile, was ordered to attack two Palestinian police posts near the Balata refugee camp on the outskirts of the West Bank city of Nablus, soldiers told Maariv. The newspaper quoted one paratrooper as saying the order was to kill everyone at the post his unit targeted. Seven policemen were killed by Israeli Army fire near Nablus on that day, Feb. 20, 2002, according to the newspaper. The newspaper said in its headline that a total of 15 Palestinian police were killed in various revenge operations, but the report only detailed nine deaths. The newspaper also quoted soldiers as saying they had filmed some of the killings. The army said it had no knowledge of such a video. Maariv's interviewees, whose names were withheld for what the newspaper called legal reasons, said they decided to come forward as part of "Breaking the Silence", a campaign by former soldiers to expose alleged Israeli abuse of Palestinians. "This vengeance operation has never been investigated regarding the legality or morality of the act," Maariv said. The army said in a statement in response to the Maariv report that its forces attacked "checkpoints manned by Palestinian policemen who facilitated the passage and actively assisted terrorists." Posted by: Fred 2005-06-04 |
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