"The Israeli Supreme Court on Thursday upheld Israel's policy of targeted killings of Palestinian militants, allowing the army to maintain a practice that has drawn widespread international condemnation.
The unanimous ruling from a three-judge panel fixed some legal limits, but it did not insist on prior court approval for the attacks, leaving the limits only theoretical and endorsing the killings in practice.
Israel has defended the practice as necessary to prevent terror attacks, including suicide bombings. But the original justification of stopping "ticking bombs" has been expanded over the years to targeting militant leaders, including field commanders and the founder of Hamas.
Palestinians and human rights groups, who have denounced the killings as assassinations and summary executions without trial, criticized the court for giving legal legitimacy to the practice.
During the last six years of conflict, Israel has routinely targeted militants in airstrikes. The Israeli human rights organization B'tselem estimates that 339 Palestinians were killed in the targeted operations since 2000. Of those, 210 were the targets and the rest were bystanders."
Follow the AP article link below for full text http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2006/12/14/international/i104940S45.DTL
1 comment:
An evil policy. Really shameful and degrading. Utterly inexcusable and a policy that has probably done more to promote terrorism thn any other.
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