Israel's Supreme Court yesterday banned the military's practice of using Palestinian civilians as "human shields" in arrest raids, saying it violates international law.
The court ruled in response to petitions by human rights groups.
In August 2002, the court had issued a temporary injunction against the practice. Human rights groups have said the military has repeatedly violated the ban since then.
PHOTO: AP
In yesterday's final ruling, the court said the practice amounts to a "slide down the slope toward a severe violation of international law."
Marwan Dallal, an attorney for the Israeli human rights group Adallah, said: "It's an important decision, but we need to see if the military will abide by it."
The human shield practice became an issue in the spring of 2002, when the Israeli military carried out a major offensive in the West Bank, in response to a series of suicide bombings by Palestinian militants. During arrest raids, soldiers would sometimes force Palestinian civilians to approach the homes and hideouts of wanted people.
In August 2002, a 19-year-old Palestinian student, Nidal Daraghmeh, was killed in such an incident in the West Bank town of Tubas. At the time, troops called Daraghmeh out of his house and forced him to knock at the door of a neighboring building where a senior Hamas fugitive was hiding out. Gunfire erupted and Daraghmeh was killed.
The Hamas fugitive later died in a shootout with soldiers.
Meanwhile, Israeli Finance Minister Ehud Olmert said yesterday that Israel is prepared to make gestures toward the Palestinians when Prime Minister Ariel Sharon meets with Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas next week,
"Any gesture on our part which could ease the daily life of the Palestinians without endangering our security may be considered," Olmert said on Israeli radio.
He notably alluded to the construction of Israeli army roadblocks in the West Bank, and new quotas of Palestinian workers allowed to ply their trades in Israel.
Olmert also mentioned the building of a Gaza port or the eventual freeing of Palestinian prisoners as other possibilities for discussion at Tuesday's summit.
"Abbas cannot however hope that prisoners with Israeli blood on their hands will be released," he stressed.
An interministerial mission, led by Justice Minister Tsippi Livni, has been set up to consider the options, he added.
Olmert said that Israel expected the Palestinian Authority for its part to "dismantle and disarm Palestinian terrorist organizations".
He also reiterated that "Israel opposes the participation of any terrorist organizations such as Hamas in the Palestinian election," scheduled for January.
According to Israeli radio, the Sharon-Abbas summit will probably be held at Sharon's Jerusalem residence.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
RSS