TEL AVIV Ñ Israel's military has eased restrictions on its policy of
assassinating Palestinian militants.
Israeli military sources said commanders are now being allowed to target
leading Palestinian insurgents even if they are accompanied by their spouses
and close relatives. The sources said the new rules have enabled air and
ground forces to launch attacks on insurgents from both the Islamic
opposition Hamas and the ruling Fatah movements.
The new regulations were introduced, the sources said, after the militants used civilians, particularly their families, as human
shields. Israeli assassinations were sometimes
called off when the targeted insurgents were found with members of their
families, Middle East Newsline reported.
"There is a limit to what you can demand from the army in times of war,"
Israeli minister Effie Eitam, who did not confirm the policy, said.
The turning point, the sources said, took place during the assassination
of Hamas military leader Salah Shehada in Gaza City last month. The sources
said Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Moshe Ya'alon approved an F-16 air attack on
Shehada's apartment despite intelligence information that the Hamas leader
was spending the night with his wife. In addition to Shehada, another 14
people were killed in the attack.
"The decision was that no longer would leading terrorists be able to
hide behind their wives or even children," a military source said. "The new
policy is meant to include terrorist leaders who are responsible for suicide
bombings."
The new policy enabled Israeli air force attacks on Hamas and Fatah
leaders over the last week. On early Sunday, five people were killed during
a failed AH-64A Apache helicopter attack on a Palestinian car that contained
two insurgents. One insurgent, connected to Hamas, was killed and the other
insurgent escaped.
"This is not a clean war," Gideon Eilat, a former senior Israeli air
force officer, said. "The policymakers are well aware of this."
The government has not acknowledged the new policy. Several ministers
have criticized the killing of civilians in Israeli military attacks that
targeted Palestinian insurgents. Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin
Ben-Eliezer said he will review the latest military operations in which 13
civilians were said to have been killed since Thursday.
"I hope that we are talking about incidents and not a policy," Haim
Ramon, chairman of the Knesset Foreign Relations Committee, said. "Salah
Shehada, who was with his wife at the time, was an exception. We haven't
changed the policy."
