Israel/Assassination

Israeli targeted killings are assassinations labeled illegal by most of the rest of the world. While the term "targeted killing" has in 2012 come to mean drone attacks, many Palestinians have in the past been killed by gunfire, booby-traps, poisons or other means.

This article is intended to be read in conjunction with Wikipedia articles Israeli targeted killings, Assassination, Criticism of the Israeli government, and Targeted killing which are full of detail that has been selected and edited so as to give a distorted impression. Wikipedia is full of lists, including those of assassination victims (eg Russian journalists), but there are none for this topic.

Assassination as policy

In June 2002, Professor Steven R. David, Associate Dean at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland argued at the "BESA Center Conference on Democracy and Limited War" that:

Israel has openly pursued a policy of targeted killing since the inception of the second intifada in September 2000. The Israelis have identified, located and then killed alleged Palestinian terrorists with helicopter gunships, fighter aircraft, tanks, car bombs, booby traps and bullets. Dozens of Palestinians have been killed, prompting international condemnation, domestic soul searching and bloody retaliation. ... I argue that the policy of targeted killing is in Israel's interests and, subject to certain guidelines, should be retained. I argue this despite my conclusion that targeted killing has not appreciably diminished the costs of terrorist attacks and may have even increased them. Targeted killing is effective, however, in providing retribution and revenge for a population under siege and may, over the long term, help create conditions for a more secure Israel.

Opposition to assassinations

In 2012, there is much discussion of the legality and effectiveness of assassinations, this is a selection of opposition view-points:

• Israeli - Research director of B’Tselem, "The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories", Yael Stein, stated in an article "By Any Name Illegal and Immoral: Response to 'Israel's Policy of Targeted Killing'":

The argument that this policy affords the public a sense of revenge and retribution could serve to justify acts both illegal and immoral. Clearly, lawbreakers ought to be punished. Yet, no matter how horrific their deeds, as the targeting of Israeli civilians indeed is, they should be punished according to the law. David’s arguments could, in principle, justify the abolition of formal legal systems altogether.

• American - The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) stated "A program of targeted killing far from any battlefield, without charge or trial, violates the constitutional guarantee of due process. It also violates international law, under which lethal force may be used outside armed conflict zones only as a last resort to prevent imminent threats, when non-lethal means are not available. Targeting people who are suspected of terrorism for execution, far from any war zone, turns the whole world into a battlefield."

• Egypt - Ibrahim Nafie, writing in Egypt's Al-Ahram Weekly in 2001, criticized the U.S. for agreeing with "the Israeli spin that calls ... its official policy of assassinating Palestinian leaders 'targeted killing.'"

Lists of assassinations

Assassinations of western figures

Stamps issued by Israel in 1982 to honour terrorists and others, including the war-time assassins of Lord Moyne, buried with full state and military honours on Mount Herzl in 1975.

• 6 November 1944 - Lord Moyne, Cairo. The Stern Gang had been targeting the British in Palestine since 1940, making several attempts on the life of the British High Commissioner, Sir Harold MacMichael. Instead of which, Moyne (Irish and one of the few in the British government to support partition) became their first victim. Churchill had sent his good friend to Cairo, and he told the House of Commons: If our dreams for Zionism are to end in the smoke of an assassin's pistol, and the labours for its future produce a new set of gangsters worthy of Nazi Germany, then many like myself will have to reconsider the position we have maintained so consistently and so long in the past. In 1975, the bodies of the two executed assassins were returned to Israel, were honoured in the Jerusalem Hall of Heroism and buried in the military section of Mount Herzl in a state funeral with full military honors. Britain lodged a formal protest, but Israel rejected the criticism, referring to Ben Zuri and Hakim as "heroic freedom fighters". In 1982, postage stamps were issued in their honour.

• 17th Sept 1948 - Count Folke Bernadotte was a member of the Swedish royal family, cousin to the King. He was second only to Wallenburg for rescuing Jews in the last months of WWII. On 14 May 1948, the day before the British Mandate expired, the UN appointed him as "Mediator" to watch over Israel's birth, 'to use his good offices with the local community and authorities in Palestine ... to promote a peaceful adjustment of the future situation in Palestine'. Two months after his killing, and as a result of great international pressure, Israel arrested Nathan Yellin-Mor, the head of the Stern Gang, and Matitiahu Schmulevitz who were convicted and presently released. Yitzhak Shamir, the organization's operational commander and future Prime Minister of Israel, went into hiding.

• 27 March 1952 - a package addressed to Chancellor Adenauer killed a German police officer and injured two others. Investigations led to people closely related to the Herut Party of Israel and former terrorists. Five Israeli suspects (former members of Irgun) were identified in Paris but allowed to return to Israel. Eliezer Sudit later revealed that the mastermind behind the assassination attempt was Menachem Begin, later to become Prime Minister of Israel. Begin aimed to prevent the signing of agreements which paid German reparations to the state of Israel rather than the Holocaust survivors themselves. In June 2006 the link to Menachem Begin was confirmed in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, quoted by the Guardian. Begin had offered to sell his gold watch as the conspirators ran out of money. The bomb was hidden in an encyclopedia and it killed a bomb-disposal expert, injuring two others. Adenauer (an impeccably anti-Nazi German) was targeted in order "to rouse the international media. It was clear to all of us there was no chance the package would reach Adenauer".

Assassinations of Palestinians in Europe

Subsequent to the 1972 Munich massacre of Israeli athletes at the Olympic games, Israeli agents set out to kill a range of their suspected Palestinian opponents, leading to the Lillehammer affair. The Mossad agents murdered Ali Hassan Salamehm, an innocent Moroccan living in Norway. Two members of the terrorist cell were seized the next day as they re-used a getaway car to go to the airport and they betrayed the rest of the cell.

Incriminating documents and the keys to a network of safe houses were discovered. However, the cell leader, Harari, escaped and Israel refused to extradite him.

In 1996, Israel paid US$283,000 compensation to the victim's wife and daughter, and a separate settlement of US$118,000 to a son from a previous marriage, but without taking responsibility for the killing.

Assassinations of Palestinians elsewhere

• 20th Jan 2010 - Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, senior Hamas commander and one of the founders of the al-Qassam Brigades, died in January 2010 by electrocution and/or the drug succinylcholine and/or by suffocation in his room in a five-star Dubai hotel. Dubai police said that Mossad was behind the killing.

• 25th Sept 1997 - Khaled Mashal is a leader of Hamas who was the target of an assassination attempt in Jordan in 1997. Two Mossad agents carrying Canadian passports entered Jordan and injected Mashal with an unknown nerve toxin. A few days later, Netanyahu surrendered to international pressure and provided the antidote.

• Khalil al-Wazir, said to have been one of the founders and the Military Head of Fatah was killed in Tunis in 1988.

• Three Palestinians killed in Beirut in 1973, Muhammad Najar, Kammal Adwan, and Kammal Nasser.

Assassinations of Palestinians in Gaza

• 10th March 2012 - Mahdi Ahmad Mahmoud Abu Shawish. 25 year-old resident of Rafah, killed in Rafah district, by a missile fired from an aircraft.

• 9th March 2012 - Zuheir Musa Ahmad al-Qaysi, 49 year-old resident of a-Shaburah (R.C), Rafah district, killed in Gaza city, by a missile fired from an aircraft. Killed while riding in a vehicle with another armed man, Mahmoud Ahmad Hanani, 44 year-old resident of Gaza city.

• 8th Dec 2011 - Issam Subhi Isma'il al-Batsh, 43 year-old resident of Gaza city, killed in Gaza city, by a missile fired from an aircraft. Senior official in al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, killed in a car with his nephew, active in the military wing of Hamas.

• 29th Oct 2011 - Abd al-Karim Musa 'Odeh Shatat, 24 year-old from Khan Yunis, Bassem Muhammad Salman Abu al-'Ata, 33 year-old from Gaza city, Muhammad Khamis Mar'i 'Ashur 23 year-old from Khan Yunis, Ahmad Khalil 'Abd a-Latif a-Sheikh Khalil 36 year-old senior official in the military wing of Islamic Jihad, Ahmad Khalil 'Abd a-Latif a-Sheikh Khalil 36 year-old, Hassan Muhammad Hassan al-Khadari 26 year-old from Gaza city, all killed at an Islamic Jihad training camp.

• 24th Aug 2011 - Isma'il Zuhdi Isma'il al-Asmar, 36 year-old resident of Tall a-Sultan Camp, Rafah district, killed in Rafah district, by a missile fired from an aircraft. Activist in the military wing of Islamic Jihad.

• 19th Aug 2011 - Mu'ataz Bassem Hamdan Kreqa' 28 year-old resident of Gaza city, killed on 19.08.2011 in Gaza city, by a missile fired from an aircraft. Active in the military wing of Islamic Jihad, he was killed while riding on a motorcycle with his brother and his toddler son.

• 18th Aug 2011 - Kamal 'Awad Muhammad a-Nayrab, 43 year-old resident of a-Shaburah (R.C), Rafah district, killed in Rafah, by a missile fired from an aircraft. Senior member of the Popular Resistance Committees, killed while at a meeting with other activists of the organization at the house of one of them. Also killed were Khaled Hamad Sha'th Sha'th, 32 year-old resident of Rafah, activist in the Popular Resistance Committees, along with his infant son, 'Imad 'Abd al-Karim 'Abd al-Khaleq Hammad 40 year-old resident of a-Shaburah (R.C), Rafah district, senior member of the Popular Resistance Committees, Khaled Ibrahim Salman al-Masri, 26 year-old resident of Rafah, activist in the Popular Resistance Committees and Imad a-Ddin Na'im Sayed Naser, 46 year-old resident of Rafah, activist in the Popular Resistance Committees.

• 11th Jan 2011 - Muhammad Jamil Musa a-Najar, 23 year-old resident of Khan Yunis, killed next to Khan Yunis, by a missile fired from an aircraft while riding on a motorcycle on the Khan Yunis-Rafah road.

• 17th Nov 2010 - Islam Saleh 'Abd al-Hamid Yasin, 34 year-old resident of Jabalya, North Gaza district, killed on 17.11.2010 in Gaza city, by a missile. Killed with his brother by missile fire while they were riding in a car.

• 3rd Nov 2010 Muhammad Jamal Fares a-Namnam, 25 year-old resident of a-Shati' Camp, Gaza district, killed in Gaza city by a missile. Wanted by Israel, killed while driving in Gaza City.

• 4th Mar 2009, Khaled Harb Khaled Sh'alan, 23 year-old resident of Gaza city, killed on 04.03.2009 in Gaza city, by a missile fired from a helicopter. He was the object of a targeted killing. Additional information: Killed while riding in his car.

• 27th Jan 2009, Hussein Faiz Hussein Shameyah, 25 year-old resident of Khan Yunis, injured on 27.01.2009 in Khan Yunis, and died on 08.02.2009. Attacked while riding a scooter in al-'Aqad area.

• 15th Jan 2009, Sa'id Muhammad Sha'ban Siyam, 48 year-old minister in the Hamas government and resident of Gaza city, killed in Gaza city by a missile. IDF bombed his house. B'Tselem does not have sufficient information to determine which function he carried out in hostilities against Israel. Muhammad Isma'il Mahmoud Siyam, 27 year-old resident of Gaza city, bodyguard of Sa'id Siyam, killed in the bombing of Siyam's house.

• 1st May 2008, Nafez Kamel Muhammad Mansur, 42 year-old resident of Rafah, killed in Rafah by a missile fired from a helicopter. Died walking the street in a-Shvura refugee camp.

And so on - the B'tselem reference lists 8 such "targeted" killings in 2008 and 14 in 2007.

• Yahya Abdel-Tif Ayyash, an alleged Hamas bombmaker, "the Engineer" was killed by a cell phone allegedly containing "50 grams of high-grade explosives." in Beit Lahya, Gaza, 1996.

There were 22 such assassinations in 2006 and 22 in 2005.

• March 22, 2004, paraplegic Sheik Ahmed Ismail Yassin was rocketed to death in his wheel-chair along with 7 others, including bystanders, as he exited a mosque in al-Sabra, Gaza. Sheikh Yassin had been jailed and released by Israel.

• Mahmoud Adani, Hamas, February 2001, Jamil Jadallah, Hamas, November 2001, Salah Shahade, Hamas, July 2002, Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi, April 2004 and Adnan al-Ghoul, October 2004.

There were a total of 38 assassinations in 2004 and 44 in 2003.

• 22nd Jul 2002 - Sheik Salah Mustafa Muhammad Shehade and his wife, his three sons, four other children and others were killed by a one-ton bomb in Gaza. making 36 in 2002, 37 in 2001 and 9 in 2000 for a total of 255 Palestinians the object of a targeted killing in the Occupied Territories

• 27th Aug 2001, Abu Ali Mustafa was was killed by two rockets as he sat at his desk in his office in Ramallah. Over 50,000 mourners attended his funeral.

One Palestinian retaliation assassination

• 17th Oct 2001 - Rehavam Ze'evi, Israeli tourist minister and strong supporter of "targeted killings" was himself assassinated by Hamdi Quran and three other members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). The PFLP stated that the assassination was in retaliation for the Aug 27, 2001, killing of Abu Ali Mustafa, their Secretary General.