Love of the Land: High Court Petition: Captured Hamas Terrorists Must Be Tried as War Criminals

High Court Petition: Captured Hamas Terrorists Must Be Tried as War Criminals

Shurat HaDin
Israel Law Center
21 December 09

The human rights organization Shurat HaDin – Israel Law Center has filed a petition today to the High Court of Justice (BAGATZ) in Jerusalem demanding that Hamas terrorists arrested by Israel be tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity, not just murder as is the current practice.

According to the petition, the Attorney General violated Israeli law by refusing to indict the terrorists who fire rockets into Israel for war crimes and crimes against humanity—crimes that carry a life sentence without the possibility of pardon or early release.

Israel is bound by the humanitarian provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention, as well as the Hague Convention and other international treaties, which stipulate that the deliberate targeting of civilians in the context of an armed conflict is a war crime; while the deliberate and systemic assault against a particular civilian population constitutes a crime against humanity.

By engaging in terror activity and deliberately launching Kassam and Grad rockets into Israeli civilian centers during Operation Cast Lead, Hamas activists repeatedly and systematically targeted civilians, and specifically Israeli civilians, for murder—placing them squarely in the definition of both war crimes and crimes against humanity. Citing previous Supreme Court rulings, the petition notes that such international law has been accepted as binding on Israeli courts and law enforcement authorities.

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Love of the Land: High Court Petition: Captured Hamas Terrorists Must Be Tried as War Criminals