Israeli undercover agents (mistarvim) invaded a Hebron hospital yesterday morning. Their mission was to assassinate a wanted Palestinian militant and arrest his cousin, who’d been shot by an Israeli settler. The army’s cover story, which the media naturally swallowed hook, line and sinker in its reporting, is that they were only aiming to arrest the wounded patient. But the murder victim came out of the bathroom in the middle of things and was killed.
Amnesty International says that the bullet wounds to the victim’s head and torso indicate these were execution-style shots, not wounds attempting to stop someone from interfering in an arrest. Palestine Today indicates the murder weapon was equipped with a silencer. As for me, when I have a choice between believing a distinguished international human rights organization vs. Israeli security forces, I pick the former. Doctors Without Borders has joined in the condemnation of this heinous crime. Unfortunately, the best that the Israeli NGO, Physicians for Human Rights could muster was a statement that hospitals were not “immune” from attack, but that such attacks needed to be “proportionate.” The Hebron attack was “disproportionate.” Nice. That should really make Israeli assassins think twice before doing this again.
The mistarvim apparently belonged to a Border Police unit known as Yamas, which specializes in such operations and also includes an assassination unit. Frankly, I’d go so far as to call the unit that carried out this atrocity a death sqaud. Yamas works in tandem with the Shin Bet, which had a direct hand in this execution. As a general matter of thumb, among all the Israeli security forces the Border Police is known as far and away the most pathologically brutal.
This murder is a violation of international humanitarian law, plain and simple. The PA must include this is any case it files with the ICC on this matter. And the ICC chief prosecutor must be pressured to accept such a case. She has refused thus far, despite rulings against her by an appeals panel which directed her to pursue such a case.
There may be some pro-Israeli apologists who can approve of this execution, but I submit that they must also approve a Palestinian militant attack on an Israeli hospital in order to execute an IDF officer or Shabak agent. If they can approve of that then they approve of this. If they can’t, then they are abject hypocrites.
Israel violates the international rule of law with impunity. It is a rogue terror state and must be treated as such. It deserves no sympathy or consideration from the international community. It’s justifications for terror and murder must be ignored.
Israel’s level of chutzpah is breathtaking. It willingness to flout all moral considerations is flabbergasting. They call Israel the Start Up Nation and praise it for its innovation. Well, it is innovative in its methods of terrorism as well. Perhaps its greatest “contribution” to world civilization. Far more innovative than drip irrigation and new medical technologies.
The main diversion that the Israeli agents used in gaining entrance to the hospital was a female agent dressed as a pregnant woman in hijab. This reminds me of other instances in which women have been used to stage terror attacks. Ehud Barak dressed as a woman to perpetrate the assassination of three PLO leaders. Honeypot agents helped kidnap Mordechai Vanunu and several other wanted figures.
This murder raises the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli security forces to 83.
The Israelis have excellent tutors in the perpetration of such war crimes. Only a few weeks ago, a U.S. aircraft launched a massive attack on a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Afghanistan, killing 30 patients and staff. To this day, the U.S. has offered mealy-mouthed, contradictory explanations. It has launched an internal probe and refused to agree to an independent investigation. Israel has learned at the knees of its teachers in terror, the U.S. military. I don’t know which is worse.
who is learning from or teaching who? he US has lots of experience from South America, etc, etc including use of proxy killers such as bin Laden getting rid of russians from Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein testing US poson gas on Kurdish citizens and Iranians, ete etc etc etc
Israelis sell their “field tested” weapons and had a history with apartheid south africa and their own “tame” palestinian apartheid victims and proxy Egyptian and Syrian military to keep pot boiling in the Middle east etc etc…
who is worst? good question… evil is as evil does!!!
A basic requirement of International Humanitarian Law – the armed forces of the occupying poser must wear a distinctive symbol that is recognizable at a distance.
Not to do so is “perfidy”, and that is a very serious war crime.
@Yeah
Cite the statute, please.
Hopper: “Cite the statute, please.”
According to international humanitarian law an occupied territory is under the “authority” of the army of occupation (Article 42, 43 of the Hague Regulations, 1907), which means that law enforcement is a military responsibility (again, Article 42 and 43).
We know that for a fact, because Israel brings all Palestinian prisoners before a MILITARY tribunal for trial, regardless of the charges – it doesn’t bring them before a civilian criminal court.
Sooooooo, given that “law enforcement” is the responsibility of the Army of Occupation, just what are the requirements for being a member of that legal authority?
The answer is that they must:
a) be commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates
b) have a fixed distinctive emblem recognizable at a distance
c) carry arms openly
d) conduct their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war
(Article 1 Hague Regulations, Article 4 Geneva Convention III)
To violate any or all of those requirements marks you as an “illegal combatant”.
We also know that for a fact, because the Israeli government argues that before the Israel High Court of Justice time and time again, and that court has accepted that argument on every single occasion.
With me so far?
To violate requirement (b) or (c) is to commit the war crime of “perfidy”, amongst which examples we find “the feigning of civilian, non-combatant status” (Article 37 Additonal Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions).
That feigning such a status in order to kill someone is a war crime is confirmed in the Rome Statute of the ICC:
Article 8(2)(b)(xi) “Killing or wounding treacherously individuals belonging to the
hostile nation or army;”
and also
Article 8(2)(e)(ix) “Killing or wounding treacherously a combatant adversary;”
Slapping on fake beards, wearing civilian clothing, and “escorting” a let’s-pretend-she’s-pregnant women into a hospital in order to kill someone is rather “treacherous”, don’tcha’ think?
It is most definitely “perfidy”, and it quite clearly recognized as a war crime.
Now, anything else I can help you with, Hopper?
Uhh….yeah.
The man the undercover police sought to arrest was a criminal suspect in a stabbing.
He wasn’t a’ combatant adversary’. He was a criminal suspect.
Also the undercovers didn’t attempt to ‘kill or wound treacherously’. They were attempting an arrest.
BTW. You still haven’t provided us the actual statute for the grave war crime of perfidy.
@ Anonymous: I have several concerns with you. I just mentioned your unfortunate choice of a handle, which I expect you to change. I also notice that every comment you make uses a different IP address. WHich means you are likely using an IP proxy. Anyone who has to conceal their identity to post comments online is either a hasbara troll or a follower of the Dalai Lama in Tibet fearful for his life. Since you aren’t the latter, that means you’re the former. Hasbara trolls using various tricks to conceal their identity immediately raise my hackles. My antenna are way up for you.
Further, read the comment rules and read them carefully. One you just broke is to repeat the argument of a comment you just published. Do not duplicate comments or arguments. Each comment must say something you haven’t said before–make an argument you haven’t made before. Repetition is boring.
Finally, Yeah, Right did give you the statute. You apparently missed it or can’t read (or both).
“The man the undercover police sought to arrest was a criminal suspect in a stabbing.”
*sigh*
One More Time For The Slow People.
Law Enforcement inside an occupied territory is under the auspices of the ARMY OF OCCUPATION. The “police” of the state that sent that army in has no jurisdiction there, precisely because “authority” over the occupied territory does not reside with “the state of Israel”, it reside with “the IDF commander in the West Bank”.
So these “undercover police” are not “undercover police”.
They are “undercover IDF soldiers” or they are “undercover Border Police” (which is the same thing, since the Border Police are a branch of the IDF).
And “undercover soldier” is “perfidious”, and that’s a war crime, and it remains a war crime even if the person they are seeking to kill is labelled by them as “a criminal suspect”.
An IDF soldier stands guard in a checkpoint?
Then he has to wear his uniform while on active duty.
An IDF soldier collects the garbage?
Then he is on active duty, and he must wear his uniform.
An IDF soldier goes out to “arrest criminals”?
Then he must do so while wearing his uniform, because he is on active duty.
Get that through you skull: regardless of what task he is carrying out inside that occupied territory, he is ON ACTIVE DUTY while he is performing that task, and so HE MUST WEAR HIS UNIFORM.
It simply does not matter what “functions of government” he is carrying out, he is carrying out that task AS A MEMBER OF THE ARMY OF OCCUPATION, and he must at all times identify himself as such.
Honestly, that ain’t rocket science.
“BTW. You still haven’t provided us the actual statute for the grave war crime of perfidy.”
*sigh*
Article 37 Additonal Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions is the official definition of the crime of “perfidy”, but both Article 1 of the Hague Regulations and Article 4 of GCIII require members of an armed force to wear a distinctive symbol.
The Hague Regs and the Geneva Conventions are the bedrock of International Humanitarian Law, therefore a failure to abide by the requirements of either is – by definition – a “grave violation” of IHL.
“Now, anything else I can help you with, Hopper? ”
Well. Yes.
The undercover police attempted to arrest a criminal suspect who’d stabbed an Israeli civilian.
The criminal suspect was not a ‘combatant’, or even, more broadly speaking, ‘an adversary’.
Please explain how a criminal suspect is entitled protection under the Laws of War.
@ Hopper: You are truly a dunce. We don’t know what the patient had done. We don’t know whether he’s a Boy Scout or murderer. We only know that an Israeli security official from an agency known for lying through its teeth to shield itself from embarrassment & whatever consequences should normally befall assassins like it, alleged the man was a criminal suspect.
If he was suspected by the Israelis of being a terrorist then he certainly is a ‘combatant’ and may not be apprehended by soldiers dressed as civilians. If he was not a terrorist, then he was a civilian and even more deserving of protection under international humanitarian law governing conduct in hospitals.
@Richard
“If he was suspected by the Israelis of being a terrorist then he certainly is a ‘combatant’ and may not be apprehended by soldiers dressed as civilians.”
There are two types of combatants, lawful combatants and unlawful combatants.
Which kind of combatant was Mr. Azzam? Lawful or unlawful?
Simple question.
I don’t know he was a “combatant” at all. I only know the press flacks for an Israeli death squad called him one. But if he was indeed a combatant he was a more lawful one than the Israeli assassins who executed him.
Hopper: ” The undercover police attempted to arrest a criminal suspect who’d stabbed an Israeli civilian.”
Ahem. They are not “undercover police”.
Israeli police jurisdiction does not extend to an Israeli-occupied territory.
These are “undercover IDF soldiers” and “undercover Border Police” (the latter operate in the West Bank under the IDF chain of command, so that’s a distinction without a difference).
That these are “IDF soldiers who carry out law enforcement” is no different to them being “IDF soldiers who collect the garbage” or “IDF soldiers who direct traffic”.
In all cases, and at all times, they remain “IDF soldiers on active duty”, and IHL insists that soldiers on active duty must wear their uniform.
Sorry.
Hopper: “The criminal suspect was not a ‘combatant’, or even, more broadly speaking, ‘an adversary’. ”
I’m not talking about whether a criminal must wear fatigues.
I’m pointing out that those who are sent to arrest him are SOLDIERS ON ACTIVE DUTY, and the laws of war can not be more clear on this issue: soldiers on active duty must wear a distinctive emblem that is visible at a distance.
Sorry.
Hopper: “Please explain how a criminal suspect is entitled protection under the Laws of War.”
*sigh*
I don’t know how many times I have to point this out, but I am explaining WHAT A SOLDIER IN AN ARMY OF OCCUPATION IS REQUIRED TO DO.
And he is REQUIRED TO WEAR A DISTINCTIVE EMBLEM THAT IS VISIBLE AT A DISTANCE.
Holy crap, is the standard of hasbara slipping nowadays, or is it slipping?
Hopper: “Please explain how a criminal suspect is entitled protection under the Laws of War.”
Oh, gosh, that’s actually an easy one.
If he is not “a combatant” but merely “a criminal suspect” then he falls within the definition of a “protected person” under Geneva Convention IV.
So if he is someone who is being subjected to a belligerent occupation who decides to Commit A Crime Against The Occupier (which is, if I read you correctly, your argument) then he is indeed entitled to protection under International Humanitarian Law.
Indeed, you’ll find that protection spelt out in some details in Articles 64 to 78 of Geneva Convention IV, which explain what an occupying power can – and can’t – do to Criminals Who Carry Out Crimes Against The Occupier Inside An Occupied Territory.
Read. It. And. Weep.
[BTW, it is all irrelevant to my point, which is that EVERYTHING that is done inside an Israeli-occupied territory is done under the “authority of the occupying power”, which is…. the IDF. So every IDF soldier who is carrying out any “function of government” inside the West Bank is doing so as a soldier who is on active duty within the Army of Occupation. So It really doesn’t matter what he is doing – much less who he is doing it to – he remains at all times a soldier on active duty, and therefore he MUST IDENTIFY HIMSELF AS SUCH]
@yeah
“I don’t know how many times I have to point this out, but I am explaining WHAT A SOLDIER IN AN ARMY OF OCCUPATION IS REQUIRED TO DO.”
In relation to whom? Lawful combatants and adversaries, that whom. Not to criminal suspects.
The point of the laws of perfidy, is that soldiers do not use tricks, including dressing like civilians, to kill or seriously wound other soldiers.
The laws of perfidy, applies to lawful combatants, NOT to criminal suspects. To require the Border Police to remain in uniform when making an arrest of a criminal suspect is to give that criminal suspect an advantage that the criminal would not otherwise have if the criminal suspect didn’t live under occupation.
Is any of this sinking in?
Here’s Article 65 of the Customary IHL, according to the ICRC.
https://www.icrc.org/customary-ihl/eng/docs/v1_rul_rule65
Nowhere is Article 65 shown to apply to criminal suspects. Article 65 applies to soldiers, militiamen, lawful combatants and ‘adverseries’. If the Border Police are soldiers, as you claim, than a criminal suspect is not their ‘adversaries’.
Imagine that the Border Police must arrest an armed rapist in a crowded souk. Their uniforms would give them away immediately and the armed suspect could shoot up the souk or take hostages. Does the war crime of perfidy require the Border Police to wear uniforms when making the arrest of the armed rape suspect?
We would hope not.
@ Hopper: If the victim of the Israeli death squad was a militant who had actually committed a crime against an Israeli target (and the IDF has NEVER said he was suspected of such a crime) then he was certainly not a “criminal suspect.” He hadn’t stolen a car or gotten into a drunken brawl and killed someone. He had committed a political crime, one that involved resistance to Israel’s illegal Occupation. If you add into this that the death squad were not wearing military uniforms, you have a real war crime stew brewing.
I’m going to shut you down in this thread at this point. You’re starting to repeat yourself. No more comments here. If you do, you will be moderated.
Hopper: “In relation to whom?”
That is the wrong question. The correct question is “in relation to what”, where:
“what” = “soldiering”.
This is a belligerent occupation.
I’ll repeat that, because you don’t appear to have noticed: THIS IS A BELLIGERENT OCCUPATION.
It is therefore axiomatic that this involves a state of “belligerency”, precisely because “occupations” are maintained via the guns of an “Army of Occupation”.
And because there is a state of belligerency involved in maintaining a belligerent occupation then we know for a fact – an indisputable fact – that the International Humanitarian Laws apply to soldiers who are on active duty in an army of occupation, meaning that he must at all time comport himself according to the rules of IHL.
And Rule Number One is this:
A soldier must:
a) be under the command of a superior responsible for his conduct
b) wear a distinctive emblem visible from a distance
c) carry his arms openly
d) conduct himself in accordance with the laws and customs of war.
It doesn’t matter *what* that soldier is doing, and it doesn’t matter *who* he is doing it to, because WHILE HE IS ON ACTIVE DUTY IN THE ARMY OF OCCUPATION THEN HE IS REQUIRED TO OBEY THOSE FOUR RULES.
He has been ordered to peel potatoes?
Doesn’t matter, he must wear his uniform.
He is on guard duty at a checkpoint?
Doesn’t matter, he must wear his uniform.
He has been ordered to barge into a hospital and arrest a patient?
Doesn’t matter, he must wear his uniform.
It really is that simple, and all your “But! But! What about xxxxx?” are all exercises in irrelevancy.
The soldier is on ACTIVE DUTY. He is therefore obliged by IHL to obey those four rules.
Hopper: “Lawful combatants and adversaries, that whom. Not to criminal suspects.”
YOU. ARE. WRONG.
The requirement exists so that *******everybody******* knows who is a soldier (= can be shot at) and who is a civilian (= can not be shot at).
It is in everybodies interest that those four rules be obeyed At ALL TIMES AND IN ALL CIRCUMSTANCES, because if they are not then nobody knows who will be shot at, nor who will be doing that shooting.
Holy crap, Hopper, you really do not have the faintest idea what you are talking about, do you?
Hoper: “To require the Border Police to remain in uniform when making an arrest of a criminal suspect is to give that criminal suspect an advantage that the criminal would not otherwise have if the criminal suspect didn’t live under occupation.”
What you are arguing – pleading, in effect – is that a soldier in an army of occupation need only comply with the requirements of IHL when it is convenient, and when those requirements become an inconvenience then he is “entitled” to dispense with them.
Because that’s what you are arguing: Israeli soldiers can simply toss the rule book out if doing so is advantageous to him.
How wonderfully Zionist of you, Hopper.
@Yeah
You are clumsily relying on the laws of belligerent occupation in order to bolster your argument that Israel had committed the war crime of ‘perfidy’.
What you have failed to do thus far, is to confine your argument to the four corners of the Law of Perfidy and use THAT black letter law to prove your (original) claim of ‘perfidy’. Remember that?
If you can’t prove your argument using the actual law of perfidy itself, than you lose.
Here’s rule 65, again. https://www.icrc.org/customary-ihl/eng/docs/v1_rul_rule65
And remember these keywords; adversary, armed combatants.
Wait. I’ll give you another hint.
“killing or wounding treacherously a combatant adversary” constitutes a war crime in non-international armed conflicts”
Great reply
“Their mission was to assassination a wanted Palestinian militant and arrest his cousin who’d been shot by an Israeli settler.”
Balderdash!
The cousin/victim had tried to fight the soldiers.
“The Shalaldeh family, that came to collect Abdullah’s body, claimed Israel had executed him, but admitted that he tried to fight the soldiers after realizing they were trying to arrest his cousin.”
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4724483,00.html
And who’s said that the cousin was a ‘wanted’ man? You?
The hospital patient, Azzam Shalaldeh, 20, had stabbed and moderately wounded 58-years-old Israel Ben-Aharon near the settlement of Metzad in the West Bank last month, and managed to escape despite being shot by his victim.
Hopper: “The cousin/victim had tried to fight the soldiers. ”
I have several points to make.
Point (1): That “he tried to fight soldiers” is not actually the criteria for the use of lethal force. After all, attempting to wrestle with twenty unidentified assailants is “fighting them”, but in no way would it represent a lethal threat to any one of that armed thugs.
And this needs to be stressed: the criteria for the use of lethal force by Israeli security forces is that the situation is “life threatening”, and this is a situation where Abdullah Shalaldeh was armed with anything more “lethal” than his bare hands.
Point (2): Abdullah Shalaldeh emerged from the bathroom, only to be confronted by unidentified – and unidentifiable – armed men.
Care to prove to any of us how he knew they were “undercover soldiers”, or that those “undercover soldiers” identified themselves before shooting him?
[Note, of course, that under int’l law the phrase “undercover soldier” is an oxymoron, and quite illegal)
Point (3): The quote that Hooper reproduces
“The Shalaldeh family, that came to collect Abdullah’s body, claimed Israel had executed him, but admitted that he tried to fight the soldiers after realizing they were trying to arrest his cousin”
is, of course, not *actually* substantiated by a direct quote from those family members.
The lack of a direct quote which suggests very, very strongly that Yoav Zitun is “reporting” nothing more than “hearsay” that has been fed to him by the Israeli security services.
That it is “hearsay” is easy to demonstrate i.e. the only “family member” who was in the room was Bilal Shalaldeh, and the reporter doesn’t claim that Bilal (the only eyewitness, remember) is the source of that “admission”.
Quite the contrary.
If you read that article you will note that It was family members who “came to collect Abdullah’s body” who are reported to have made that “admission”, and (have I mentioned this before? I think I did) they are family members who weren’t in that room when the shooting took place.
So we have a situation where Yoav Zitun is “reporting” something that has been told to him by the security forces regarding an admission made by people he has not met (and does not name) regarding events that they were not present to witness.
So with respect to Yoav Zitun I hear the distinct echo of Mandy Rice-Davies i.e. “Well, he would say that, wouldn’t he?”
“That it is “hearsay” is easy to demonstrate i.e. the only “family member” who was in the room was Bilal Shalaldeh, and the reporter doesn’t claim that Bilal (the only eyewitness, remember) is the source of that “admission”.”
Excellent point.
@Elizabeth
And isn’t the report from family members that Azzam was working in the fields when he was shot, also heresay?
@ Hopper: No, because real family members actually made those statements. Not some Israeli agent who lied to an Israeli reporter who dutifully reported it in an Israeli newspaper.
@Yeah Right: You are worth your weight in gold!
“The cousin/victim had tried to fight the soldiers.”
Yes. That’s what the family said.
BTW. Heresay is a legal definition, not a journalistic standard. A journalist nearly allways prints heresay.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhfrherDFKM
@ Hopper: No, it isn’t “what the family said.” It’s what a Shabak agent told a reporter who published it in a newspaper. This is worse than a third-hand game of “Telephone.”
Just to make my previous post crystal-clear: if Yoav Zitun can produce a direct quote of a family member “admitting” that “he tried to fight the soldiers” then he can, indeed, claim that the report of a “familial admission” is not hearsay.
That remains true regardless of the accuracy (or inaccuracy) of the “admission” itself i.e. true or not, the reporter would be justified in claiming that the family BELIEVES that he did fight with those soldiers. The story of a “familial admission” is therefore true, regardless of whether the family do – or don’t – know what they are talking about.
After all, the world is full of families who console themselves that their son died a hero’s dead…..
Hopper: “Yes. That’s what the family said.”
No, that claim is quite untrue.
Nowhere are we told “what the family said”, and all you have produced is a p.a.r.a.p.h.r.a.s.i.n.g. of what was claimed to have been said by that family.
Read the YNET article again, and note the neutral tone that is used: that neutral tone tells you that the reporter did not hear that “familial admission”, nor is he even in possession of a transcript of that “familial admission”.
As in: all he has to work with is what Someone Else (three guesses who) has told him.
Hooper: “BTW. Heresay is a legal definition, not a journalistic standard.”
Interesting that you bring up the concept of “journalistic standard”.
This would be an example of Yoav Zitun upholding “journalistic standards”:
“Family member Loopie Locks Shalaldeh came to recover Abdullah Shalaldeh’s body. “Poor Abdullah”, said Loopie, “he made the mistake of lunging at the soldiers, and they shot him dead for his efforts”.”
This would also be an example of Yoav Zitun upholding “journalistic standards”:
“Israeli security forces insist that family members who came to recover Abdullah Shalaldeh’s body admitted that he had lunged at the Israeli soldiers.”
The “journalistic standards” would be upheld in both cases.
In the former the reporter is telling you that the claim of a “familial admission” is NOT hearsay, precisely because he heard the family member admit that the victim fought with the Israeli security forces.
In the latter example the reporter is making it clear that the claim of a “familial admission” IS hearsay, precisely because he admits that his information comes via a 3rd party.
Hopper: “A journalist nearly allways prints heresay.”
And I don’t have a problem with that PROVIDED that the journalist makes it clear to the reader that he is regurgitating hearsay.
Here, dude, let me cut to the chase: it is the difference between
a) “The Shalaldeh family” ….. “admitted that he tried to fight the soldiers”
versus
b) “Shin Bet officials claim that the Shalaldeh family have admitted that he tried to fight the soldiers”
Both are hearsay, sure, they are, but only the latter upholds “journalistic standards”.
But what about the former?
No, that not so much: it is “stenography”, it is not “journalism”.
yes, Mr Silverstein does indeed take liberties with the facts and us here offering his opinion as fact.
he does not know what the mission was…and ignores the obvious fact that the mission was to apprehend the man who was apprehended and who was wanted for a felonious attack.
that Mr Silverstein claims as an assassination the killing of a man who attacked the security officers is yet another exmply of Mr Silverstein being unable to restrain himself from using unwarranted and loaded terminology.
it’s quite sad that an intelligent person such as Silverstein is so unable to provide honest reporting.
@ Anonymous: First, do NOT take a handle, like “Anonymous,” that is so common as to be impossible to distinguish. Your name needs to be one associated with you & you alone. If you comment again here change your handle to something the distinguishes you from other hasbarists here.
Second, I offered my commentary based on credible media & NGO sources to which I linked. If you can disprove them with equally credible facts or reports do so. If not, my views are credible & yours not.
I have reported here on scores if not hundreds of almost identical missions to this one. Almost all of them follow the same or very similar scenario: they almost always end in the murder of the suspect (though some merely end in arrrest). If something goes wrong or if the intent is to assassinate the suspect, there is always a claim the suspect had a gun or fought back & had to be neutralized, etc. This operation was little different. I have proved this countless times here, including mustering Israeli security sources who have confirmed this in previous such murders.
Your claims that “obviously” the mission was meant as an arrest is not obvious at all. Nor is your claim that the man “attacked the security officers” obvious or credible. It’s the word of an assassin against the word of Amnesty. Gee, that’s a tough choice.
Palestinian witnesses told Ma’an that they believed that the alleged Palestinian attacker had fled the scene unharmed and that Azzam had been working in agricultural fields when he was shot.
That is also what the family told the hospital staff, that he had been wounded while harvesting. But hey, who cares, just shoot them all.
@ Hopper: And Ynet is always a credible source. Especially when it comes to reporting the statenents of Palestinians. They’re never wrong, right? Who precisely is “the Shahlaldeh family?” Did they all spontaneously as one jump forward to tell Ynet: “Yes cousin Ahmed killed himself by resisting a heavily armed assaasination squad?” Or more likely did a Shabak assassin-agent tell the reporter that he heard a family member say that?
Show me a Palestinian source or a reporter who actually interviewed a witness in the room who testifies that this is what happened & I might believe it. Till then, you ‘re just whistlin’ “Dixie.”
Again, Amnesty called it a targeted killing. I followed the reporting of the world’s leading human rights NGO.
No. Amnesty called it an ‘extra judicial execution’. You’ve misquoted Amnesty and called it a ‘targeting killing’, which, of course, is premeditated. This was a simple arrest, that went wrong.
@ Hopper: An ‘extra judicial execution’ is just as premeditated as a ‘targeted killing.’ If you think an execution isn’t premeditated you’re a dunce. Not to mention that the term “extra-judicial” implies that the killers used lethal means outside the bounds of the law to achieve their objective. If they had such an objective in killing him, then there was premeditation.
@ Hopper the Hasbarista
How could the family know what happened when they weren’t there ?
Why didn’t you quote the director of the hospital ? From the same article:
“Shawar, however, claimed the cousin, who was in the bathroom, was shot dead when he suddenly entered the room. “As (Abdullah) exited the bathroom, which was inside the room, they fired five bullets, one bullet in the head, one in the chest and three in his body,” Shawar told the radio station. ”
And anyway, who believes anything from Ynetnews on such a case ….
“must also approve a Palestinian militant attack on an Israeli hospital” – does this include shooting a rocket at the hospital in order to kill ‘surgically’ only that soldier?
You question is hypothetical since Palestinians lack the ability to execute such an operation. If in the future they would, I will salute them.
Meanwhile I will salute and admire our own soldiers who were able to operate in dangerous area with such professionalism and success.
@Eilati:
You win the aeard for Bigfest Liar” of the night. You only “salute” Palestinian assassins because you stupidly believe that no Palestinian can successfully assassinate an Israeli agent in a hospital. If they could & did you”d be squealing like a greased pig about Palestine’s low cruel immorality.
You disgust me. Further praising murderer is a major comment rule violation. You are banned.
Dude, slapping on a fake beard, wearing civilian clothes, and entering a civilian hospital under the excuse that one of their number is a pregnant woman in need of medical treaent is not “professional”.
It is, instead, “perfidy”, and international humanitarian law regards “perfidy” as a war crime.
It is not “professional” for a military force to disguise itself as civilians in order to gain an advantage.
Indeed, consider this: the IDF’s perfidious behaviour amounts to the IDF *deliberately* and *knowingly* making it impossible for its opponents to distinguish “soldier” from “civilian”.
You might want to ponder the implication of that to the argument that Palestinian militants are ” terrorists”.
Israel and the US, same side of the coin. Attacks on journalists, hospitals, rendition and torture. Inhumane treatment, flaunting International Law. Of course across today’s world it’s not limited to these two nations.
My understanding is that in the early days of the Afghanistan War US Special Forces embedded in Northern Alliance tribes took to wearing Arab dress and growing beards.
Once the Chain Of Command heard about the practice they stepped in and put a stop to it: you are soldiers, goddam it!, and the laws of war say that you must identify yourself as a soldier of the US armed forces, and you goddam make sure that everyone is aware of that fact!!!
THAT is the difference between a professional army and…… the IDF.
An excellent article, Richard, setting out the whole deplorable incident very clearly.
I am quite depressed about this violent crime. It comes shortly after the wholesale slaughter of the US attack on the hospital in Afghanistan.
Can you imagine if the Palestinians disguised themselves as a maternity case and went into an Israeli hospital to kill and kidnap patients? The whole world would yelling with outrage.
Another Shalaldah died Friday morning.
“Earlier in the day, Issa al-Shalaldah, 22, succumbed to his injuries in the al-Ahli hospital a day after being shot by Israeli forces.
The Ministry of Health told Ma’an that Issa was shot Thursday during clashes that broke out in the village of Sair following the funeral of Abdullah Shalaldah, 28.
Abdullah was killed Thursday morning by undercover Israeli forces while visiting his cousin, 20-year-old Azzam Azmi Shalaldah, who was a patient at the hospital.”
PS. No need for Hasbara-trolls to ‘explain’ anything.
https://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=768810
It’s extremely difficult for me to understand how people around the world, who otherwise are democrats and human rights activists, defend and support Israel. It is similar to the case of Cuba just a few years ago: people who fought against dictatorships (if labeled “right”) praising Cuba.
Now,for example, analysts like Cuban-American Carlos Alberto Montaner, prisoner of Castro and strong critic in exile (winner of prizes for his support of human rights ), hails Israel as a democracy and technological wonder without mentioning its atrocities committed against an oppressed population.
That is very, very difficult to understand. But I trust that the truth will come out in the end.
The Palestinians suffer so much in this brutal occupation. Imagine the trauma of those hospital staff. And it continues, day after day.
It would seem, Richard, that in your logic, since the occupation is the mother of all Israeli sins, and since the Palestinians are the weaker of the two parties, no Israeli military action is legitimate. The specifics don’t matter, and even if the reported facts were to justify Israeli actions, they Israelis are lying anyway. Thus, while on paper there exists an Israeli right to self-defense, pragmatically there is no such thing since Israel is not a legitimate entity. At the same time, since the Palestinians are powerless victims of oppression, they have no responsibility for their actions, right? In essence the Palestinians to you are zombie-like creatures, merely reacting naturally to what is happening to them with no moral agency or rational decision making. Correct me if I’m wrong, but your obsession with Israel’s so-called crimes while overlooking the Palestinians’ own responsibility for their condition would seem to reflect this outlook.
@ Yehuda: It would seem that you have committed a cardinal sin. You oppose my views yet you claim the right to paraphrase them and interpret them on my behalf. Don’t do that again. You don’t know my views. And you couldn’t summarize them even if you did.
Israel is “not a legitimate entity?” Another lie. When did I ever say that?
If Israel transformed itself into a true democracy and retreated to 67 borders, recognizing Jerusalem as capital of 2 states and recognized the Right of Return, then it would not need the army it has. I could have an army more suited to its population.
Of course Israel is entitled to have a defense force. A real defense force. Not an army of Occupation. Not death squads, undercover agents, assassins. Those it would not need.
As for Palestinians having responsibility for their actions, they have responsible to pursue their interests. And those interests include ending their dispossession and ensuring their freedom and national rights. So if they engage in violent acts in response to far, far more violent acts by you & your army, then I’d say the blame belongs primarily with you, and less with them.
No, Palestinians aren’t zombies. But I think zombies may’ve been munching on your brains. Since what you’ve written above reads like it.
Not “if,” Buddy. There’s no “if” about it.
As for my alleged “obsession” with Israeli crimes, if you were a bit more concerned about them and opposed them 1/10 as much as I do, then I wouldn’t have to have the laser focus I do on them. But in the moral vacuum you permit, I must fill it with moral concern.
“If Israel transformed itself into a true democracy and retreated to 67 borders, recognizing Jerusalem as capital of 2 states and recognized the Right of Return, then it would not need the army it has. I could have an army more suited to its population.”
As such it would cease to be a Jewish State. So it would not be Israel. Israel before 1967 did not meet this criterion, since it did not recognize the right of return. So the Israel that you want never existed, and most likely, will not exist for the foreseeable future.
Why have the Palestinians, the UN, and the Arab countries maintained the Palestinians as refugees? There are refugee camps in Gaza, for God sakes! Palestinian refugees for 67 years in Palestine itself! Where else does that exist? Anybody else would have been resettled long ago.
“So if they engage in violent acts in response to far, far more violent acts by you & your army, then I’d say the blame belongs primarily with you, and less with them.”
I always find it curious how people confuse cause and effect. The Palestinians are reacting to Israeli violence, are you kidding? I know that you can always ask the question who did what first, but if you ask the Palestinians the basic ideology behind their violent resistance, it is their opposition to Jewish hegemony and presence– anywhere in historic Palestine. This or that Israeli military action may be the immediate trigger, but the basic motivation is the ideology. Remember Hamas response after the Oslo agreements? And what do they say now? Has anything changed in their goals? Half the Palestinian population is ruled by a regime sworn to Israel’s destruction. A good portion of the other half hold the same views.
So basically you are calling for Israel to voluntarily dismantle itself (or to be dismantled by force?) . I imagine that this is what many of your supportive commentators want as well.
@ Yehuda: That’s nonsense. Of course it would still be Israel. It would not be the Jewish state it is now. It would not privilege Jews, not discriminate against non-Jews. Jews would not have more funding, power & privileges than non-Jewish citizens. Eventually, this Israel will exist. It will have to. If it does not then Israel really will eventually disappear–under the weight of its own contradictions.
Since you appear to be a new commenter, you must read the comment rules. They state that comments may not range across the entire gamut of Israeli history. They must be on-topic, relating directly to the post. This comment does not do so. Make sure that any future comments you might publish do.
This too is a load of nonsense. Yes, Palestinians do reject Israeli hegemony outside Israeli territory, that is, 1967 borders. No they do not reject Israeli “presence anywhere in historic Palestine.” That is simply a falsehood. I do not permit lies masquerading as historical facts or claims. I will not argue with you further about this. If you continue in this vein you may either be moderated or banned.
This is yet another false “summary” of my supposed views. You’ve once again spoken for me when I specifically forbade you from doing so earlier. You are walking on thin ice, my friend.