Some Israeli far-left organizations, including "The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel" and the "Yesh Gvul" movements are pressuring the Israeli Attorney General to launch an investigative committee for the “elimination operations” that started the latest operation in Gaza, “Shield and Arrow.”
The left-wing organizations sent an urgent demand to Attorney General Gali Beharev-Miara claiming that ten innocent civilians were killed as part of the assassinations, including three small children. The organizations claim through their lawyers, Michael Sfard and Snir Klein, that the circumstances of the attack raise a well-founded suspicion that they were carried out in violation of international law, and remind that the High Court of Justice requires the establishment of an external and independent review committee for the military in cases of injury to innocents.
Israel Must Probe Latest ‘Targeted Killings’ (translated into non-Doublespeak ‘Assassinations’) in the Gaza Strip - Opinion - https://t.co/JXQDMl1WuW https://t.co/5Mi7zGsAhY
— 🏳️🌈 Chuck Hamilton (he/him/his) 🏴☠️ (@natty4bumpo) May 28, 2023
In a letter to the AG, it was said about the assassinations, among other things: "These are horrific, blood-curdling results, in which children, toddlers and women and men who are citizens who have lives, families, loved ones who love them, dreams and plans for the future (just like all human beings), who have done nothing to anyone, are killed in initiated attacks by the army, which chooses the time and place and the type of armament and its strength."
The letter further claims that briefings by security officials to the media raise a strong suspicion that the decision-makers for the assassinations knew that many innocent people would be killed and yet ordered the attack. If this is the case, the letter claims, "This is a clear case of a clearly disproportionate action and therefore a clearly illegal action that flies a black flag over it." In the letter, the lawyers state that if their demand for an independent investigation is rejected, the mentioned organizations will appeal to the Israeli Supreme Court.
It is illegal for any military to conduct target, extrajudicial assassinations in a crowded civilian city absent any imminent threat or necessity. No exceptions for #Israel, or any other country. https://t.co/3O45dYiFw2
— Sahar Aziz (@saharazizlaw) May 27, 2023
Yoav Hass from the Yesh Gvul movement added, "There is a serious concern that all lines have been crossed. There is a suspicion that a black night has tarnished the captains of the State of Israel for committing an unimaginable crime, and the pilots as carrying out an obviously illegal order. Knowing in advance that there are children there and eliminating them is indeed what happened, everyone who had a hand and foot in this should be prosecuted." The Yesh Gvul movement was founded in 1982 by a number of IDF veterans who refused to show up for reserve duty and aid Israel in the First Lebanon War.
Assassinations of senior terrorists in the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terrorist movement were carried out by the IDF in the Gaza Strip earlier today.
— RedBrasco - RedLehi (@redbrasco) May 9, 2023
The Gazan leadership of the al-Quds Brigades responsible for terrorist activities in Judea-Samaria were neutralised. pic.twitter.com/ozrBqvcypI
The letter to the Attorney General was referring to the night of May 9 when the Israeli Air Force killed three senior members of the Islamic Jihad in Gaza, beginning Operation “Shield and Arrow”. In addition to the three senior jihadists, ten uninvolved civilians were killed in the attack, including three children.
