A/HRC/20/32 secure the release of or ensure that international prison standards are being met with regard to thousands of Palestinian prisoners. 6 III. Extrajudicial executions in Gaza by Israel 16. The targeted killing of Palestinian individuals amounts to extrajudicial execution or assassination—a de facto form of summary execution of an individual that provides no opportunity for a legal defence or even judicial review, denying the accused any possibility to demonstrate innocence and to receive the comprehensive protection of due process. In the 1990s, Israel strongly rejected accusations that it engaged in targeted killing. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) issued a statement in response at that time: ―There is no policy, and there never will be a policy or a reality, of wilful killings of suspects … the principle of the sanctity of life is a fundamental principle of the IDF‖.7 Despite such an affirmation, Israel has subsequently openly and extensively relied on targeted killing, resulting in an estimated 287 Palestinians being killed, mainly in Area A of the West Bank or in Gaza between 2002 and 2008, 234 of whom were targeted, the others being identified as ―collateral damage‖.8 17. Clearly demonstrating the falseness of the purported rejection by the IDF of ―wilful killing of suspects,‖ the Israeli Supreme Court set forth four conditions governing what it deemed to be the lawful recourse to targeted killing. 9 The Supreme Court’s finding was based on the idea that the targeted person must be ―directly participating in hostilities‖, and rejected the Government’s claim that it was permissible to treat suspects as ―unlawful combatants‖ who could be killed regardless of their immediate activity. 10 In subsequent instances of targeted killing, the IDF has not conformed to those Supreme Court guidelines, which themselves still stand in violation of the prohibitions of targeted killing under international law. 11 On the contrary, Israel has relied on this tactic, recently using drone attack aircraft, especially in Gaza. Beyond the overarching illegality of targeted assassination, such attacks often kill or wound others than the identified target, and in any event such intrusions of violence spread terror among the general population. 18. The concern of the Government of Israel regarding the potential danger facing its citizens who live within the range of rocket and/or mortar fire from Gaza is appropriate, but cannot justify provocative actions that are themselves in direct violation of international law in response. It should be noted that one of the most successful examples of the suppression of such rocket fire was enabled by a negotiated ceasefire, namely the one held between Israel and Gaza in 2008, until it was breached by a lethal Israeli bombing attack in Gaza on 5 November 2008. It is also notable and understandable that the world media is attentive to Israeli concerns regarding the reported one million Israelis that live within 6 7 8 9 10 11 Further information is available at the website of B’Tselem: www.btselem.org/statistics/detainees_and_prisoners. Cited in Lisa Jajjar, ―Lawfare and targeted killing: developments in the Israeli and US contexts‖, Jadaliyya, 15 January 2012. Available from www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/4049/lawfare-andtargeted-killing_developments-in-the-i. It is noted that these figures do not include killings that occurred during Israel’s war on Gaza, Operation Cast Lead. See The Public Committee against Torture in Israel et al. v. The Government of Israel et al., judgement of the Israeli Supreme Court, HCJ 769/02, 13 December 2006. Available from http://elyon1.court.gov.il/Files_ENG/02/690/007/a34/02007690.a34.htm. Ibid. For a detailed and wide ranging consideration of the status of targeted killing, see the authoritative study by the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions (A/HRC/14/24/Add.6). 9