Rights group: Israel uses unjustified lethal force against Palestinians

The Israeli Information Centre for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, B’Tselem said in a statement on Thursday, that it had examined 12 cases in which members of the Israeli security forces opened fire on Palestinian assailants who carried out or attempted to carry out stabbings against Israeli civilians to security forces.

B’Tselem said: “The information available on these cases paints a grave and alarming picture of excessive and unwarranted use of lethal gunfire, which in some cases was tantamount to the summary execution of assailants or suspected assailants. In two other cases, there is concern that soldiers denied medical care to Palestinians who were shot after assaulting Israelis and were then pronounced dead in hospital, where they were eventually taken.”

According to the organisation “the law on this matter is clear which provides that shooting to kill is permissible only in cases that a person poses mortal danger to others. However, in at least some of the cases, firing at the assailants did not cease even after they no longer posed any danger. Some were injured and lying motionless on the ground when they were shot dead. In other cases, the very use of live gunfire seems excessive. Some cases were summary executions, without the benefit of law or trial.”

“The large numbers of incidents in the past two months, some of which are described below, reflect the chilling chasm between the normative position which prohibits this type of shooting and the present reality and public mood that considers ‘shooting to kill’ valid in all cases and circumstances, even when the suspect no longer poses any danger. In this way, soldiers, police and armed civilians become judge, jury and executioner,” it added.

B’Tselem stressed that this reality is a direct result of inflammatory language used by ministers and elected officials.

The group said the office of Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan sent in an official response that “in accordance with the law and open fire regulations, there is no authorisation to carry on firing at a person who has been neutralised and no longer poses any danger.”

“Yet the sentiments Erdan voiced in public, whereby every terrorist must know that he will not survive the attack he is about to perpetrate, are the ones that receive publicity and support,” B’Tselem explained.

The organisation said the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s silence in the face of such statements authorises the implementation of this policy.

B’Tselem said its appeal to the prime minister on this matter has received no answer to date, adding that with the exception of a weak protest by the Attorney General in this regard, authorities have kept silent on this matter in the public sphere.