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Photo: Gil Yohanan
High Court President Judge Dorit Beinish
Photo: Gil Yohanan

Left-wingers demand ruling on targeted killings

Petitioners accuse High Court of 'evading' responsibility by failing to make a ruling over issue; call for immediate decision, 'before more innocent people, children die in Gaza'

Hundreds of intellectuals, former military staff, and Left-wing organizations submitted a petition to the High Court of Justice Monday, in an attempt to make judges rule over the issue of targeted killings within a number of days, and not to "delay further," in their words.

 

The list of petitioners who turned to the High Court also includes politicians, authors, Israel Prize winners, and Nobel Prize winners.

 

The petition, directed at Judges Aharon Barak, Mishael Hashin, and Dorit Beinish, claimed that "due to the fact that until today, no one in the High Court spoke over the issue of the petitions against targeted killings, Israeli governments in the past four years address the issue as something that High Court judges do not oppose."

 

"Therefore," it continued, "in the eyes of the Israeli governments and the IDF, the assassinations are considered legal. The lack of an unequivocal ruling on this urgent issue, despite the fact that there were a number of sessions in the context of the petition, forms an evasion by the judges of fulfilling their roles."


Beit Hanoun about a week ago. Concern that more innocent civilians will die (Photo: Reuters)

 

The first session on the issue of targeted killings took place in April 2002 – three months after the first petition on the issue was submitted to the High Court. The last and final meeting on the petitions was held last February. "There are no more options to wait, every further delay causes the deaths of more innocents," the petitioners claimed.

 

The petitioners mentioned the recent cases of in which targeted killings were carried out: "During the last period, including during and after the Lebanon war, 224 people were slain in the Gaza Strip (B'Tzelem data), more than half were innocents. How many more children need to die before the High Court judges rule on the matter? If a ruling is not handed immediately, this will cause the death of more innocent people, as was the case several days ago in Beit Hanoun."

 

The petitioners stresses that they were aware of the unbearable situation the people of the Western Negev have been subjected to due to the rocket attacks from Gaza, but added that "the targeted killings, which have been going on for years, do not solve this problem, but only make it worse."

 


פרסום ראשון: 11.13.06, 13:11
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