Halutz: Assassinations an Ongoing Israeli Policy, Not Response

http://www.palestine-pmc.com/details.asp?cat=1&id=1031
<snip>
...Israel Continues Killing of Palestinian Children, Abu Salha Latest Victim

09/11/2005 (Mods please note this date represents Nov. 9, 2005)

Palestine Media Center – PMC

Amid a flurry of high-level international visits to the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) and Israel, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Tuesday approved his Chief of Staff Dan Halutz’s announcement that their policy of “targeted killing” of Palestinian anti-occupation activists will continue, while publicly acknowledging that the practice was an ongoing Israeli policy and not a response to specific attacks.

Israel’s policy of the so-called “targeted killings’ is in violation of the international law and human rights organizations as well as the United Nations describe it as extra-judicial execution.

“Extra-judicial killings are not consistent with international law,” the United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in statement on October 28, in which he reminded “Israel of its obligation to take all precautions to ensure that non-combatants are not harmed.”

Israel premeditatedly resorts to hunting and extra-judicially executing Palestinian activists to avoid detaining and trying them, because the capital penalty is outlawed in Israel.

Assassinations are intended to prevent attacks, not avaenge them.

and this bit


is an outright lie, given that when possible, Israel does arrest; assassinations are used when it's not possible to arrest the person involved.

BTW - should I understand by this that the Palestinian government concedes that all Palestinian "militants" (including those that attack soldiers) are in fact criminals?

<snip>
“Extra-judicial killings are not consistent with international law,” the United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in statement on October 28...<unsnip> They shouldn't be just glossed over.

Do you have special knowledge of Israel's policy so that you can say definitively that she does not prefer the extra-judicial assasinations over arrests? I'd like to see a link if you do. And you know, I don't think I've ever read anything about a trial of a Palestinian in Israel for activities against the occupation. They may happen, I've just never heard of one. Why?

but then, you can just read the news.

First of all, there's news about arrests all the time. Those are, in fact, one of the complaints human rights organizations have toward Israel.

As for Palestinians tried for "activities against the occupations"; well, you have, e.g., Marwan Barghouti, Nasser Daoud, Mohammed Abu Varda.

Also, look at the geography. For the most part, assassinations have taken place in cities, not villages. Also, since Operation Defensive Shield (where the IDF reestablished control over the West Bank) all the assassinations I remember occurred in the Gaza Strip*. These are exactly the areas where arrests are far more difficult (at best).

*I'm not counting instances where they were killed after opening fire on the arresting force.