{"id":222167,"date":"2022-10-17T12:00:14","date_gmt":"2022-10-17T11:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=222167"},"modified":"2022-10-16T09:20:39","modified_gmt":"2022-10-16T08:20:39","slug":"israel-authorizes-military-to-kill-palestinians-with-drones-in-west-bank","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2022\/10\/israel-authorizes-military-to-kill-palestinians-with-drones-in-west-bank\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel Authorizes Military to Kill Palestinians with Drones in West Bank"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Israeli soldiers look at a drone prepared to throw gas canisters during clashes with Palestinian protestors in Ramallah, near the Jewish settlement of Beit El, in the occupied West Bank on December 14, 2018. Abbas Momani\/AFP via Getty Images.<\/p><\/div>\n

15 Oct 2022 – <\/em>Commanders of the Israeli Occupying Forces (IOF) have been\u00a0authorized to use armed drones to kill Palestinians<\/a>\u00a0in the occupied West Bank, with the approval of Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Aviv Kohavi.<\/p>\n

Hamas called the order \u201ca dangerous step<\/a>\u201d and urged Palestinians \u201cto continue resisting the Israeli occupation with all means possible until they regain their legitimate rights.\u201d<\/p>\n

The authorization to expand the use of killer drones coincides with \u201ca significant rise in shooting attacks and massive gunfire during arrest raids, specifically in the northern West Bank cities of Jenin and Nablus,\u201d\u00a0according to\u00a0The Jerusalem Post<\/em><\/a>. On September 28,\u00a0the IOF killed four Palestinians and injured dozens<\/a>\u00a0more during protests in Jenin.<\/p>\n

Since as early as\u00a02008<\/a>, the Israeli Air Force has been killing Palestinians in Gaza with drones. They have also been used to\u00a0fire gas bombs and live rounds<\/a>\u00a0in occupied Jerusalem. Although drones have been employed for surveillance, this is the first time armed drones will be utilized in the occupied West Bank. Drones comprise\u00a080 percent of the total flight hours<\/a>\u00a0in the Israeli Air Force.<\/p>\n

Israel justifies targeting Hamas and Islamic Jihad \u201cterrorists\u201d with drones for \u201ccounter-terrorism<\/a>\u201d operations if armed gunmen are thought to pose an imminent threat to Israeli troops. But Israel has\u00a0no right of self-defense<\/a>\u00a0against the people whose land it occupies. The Fourth Geneva Convention says that an occupying power has a legal duty to protect the occupied. As an occupying power, Israel cannot use military force against the occupied Palestinian people.<\/p>\n

Under international law, the Palestinians have a lawful right to resist Israel\u2019s occupation of their lands, including through armed struggle. In 1982,\u00a0the UN General Assembly<\/a>\u00a0\u201creaffirmed the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples for independence, territorial integrity, national unity and liberation from colonial and foreign domination and foreign occupation by all available means, including armed struggle.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shireen Abu Akleh\u2019s Family Files Complaint Against Israeli Leaders in ICC<\/h3>\n

In May, Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, known as the \u201cvoice of Palestine<\/a>,\u201d was reporting on an illegal IOF mass arrest raid on the Jenin refugee camp when she was\u00a0assassinated by an Israeli sniper<\/a>. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) classifies the targeting of war correspondents or journalists reporting from war zones or occupied territories by killing or physical assault as a\u00a0war crime<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Although Israel initially denied that an Israeli shot Abu Akleh, it later said there was a \u201chigh possibility<\/a>\u201d that she was \u201caccidentally hit by [Israel Defense Forces] gunfire.\u201d<\/p>\n

On September 20, Palestinian human rights organization Al-Haq and London-based research group Forensic Architecture issued\u00a0a report<\/a>\u00a0finding that Israeli forces repeatedly and deliberately targeted Abu Akleh with a \u201cwell aimed\u201d bullet. Her vest that said \u201cPRESS\u201d was clearly visible to the IOF shooter, as shown by the detailed digital reconstruction from\u00a0Al Jazeera<\/em>\u00a0footage.<\/p>\n

The same day that Al-Haq and Forensic Architecture released their report, the International Federation of Journalists, the International Center of Justice for Palestinians and the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate filed\u00a0a complaint<\/a>\u00a0in the ICC on behalf of the Abu Akleh family and journalist Ali Al Samoudi who was also shot by IOF forces at the same time as Abu Akleh.<\/p>\n

Al-Haq is one of six Palestinian human rights groups that Israel baselessly designated \u201cterrorist organizations<\/a>\u201d and\u00a0one of seven raided by the IOF<\/a>\u00a0in August.<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s assassination of Abu Akleh occurred just days after a coalition of Palestinian journalist organizations and leading human rights lawyers filed\u00a0an initial complaint in the ICC<\/a>,<\/u>\u00a0protesting the systematic targeting of Palestinian journalists.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe killing of journalists is an attempt to cover up and prevent their work in documenting human rights abuse and fosters impunity for the injustices that they are seeking to cover,\u201d\u00a0said Jennifer Robinson<\/a>, a lawyer for the Abu Akleh family.<\/p>\n

The Israeli High Court of Justice (HCJ) \u201ceffectively legalizes almost every act committed by Israel\u2019s security forces,\u201d Ishai Menuchin, executive director of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, wrote in my book,\u00a0Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral and Geopolitical Issues<\/em><\/a>. \u201cOne can only conclude that Israel\u2019s HCJ is one of the primary enablers of the ongoing Israeli occupation of the Occupied Palestinian Territories.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another enabler of Israel\u2019s illegal occupation is the U.S. government, which provides Israel with $3.8 billion annually in military assistance. The Biden administration has refused to condemn Israel for its illegal terrorist designations and raids on the Palestinian human rights groups or its unlawful assassination of Abu Akleh. U.S. President Joe Biden has\u00a0twice refused to meet<\/a>\u00a0with Abu Akleh\u2019s family face-to-face.<\/p>\n

Those who speak out against Israel\u2019s illegal occupation face serious consequences. Progressive journalist Katie Halper was \u201ccensored and fired<\/a>\u201d by\u00a0The Hill<\/em>\u00a0for defending Rep. Rashida Tlaib\u2019s description of Israel as an apartheid state. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Israeli human rights group B\u2019Tselem have all characterized the system in Israel as apartheid.\u00a0The Hill<\/em>\u00a0is owned by Nexstar Media Group, which calls itself \u201cAmerica\u2019s largest local television and media company.\u201d<\/p>\n

Journalists who report the truth about Israel\u2019s crimes incur the risk of being fired or even assassinated. Neither Israel nor the U.S. government and its corporate media will tolerate any criticism of the illegal Israeli occupation.<\/p>\n

_______________________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Marjorie Cohn is a professor of law at the Thomas Jefferson School of Law, San Diego, California, and a former president of the National Lawyers Guild. In 1978 Cohn received a job in the International Association of Democratic Lawyers. <\/em>Wikipedia<\/a><\/p>\n

Go to Original – popularresistance.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

15 Oct 2022 – Commanders of the Israeli Occupying Forces have been\u00a0authorized to use armed drones to kill Palestinians\u00a0in the occupied West Bank. Journalists who report the truth about Israel\u2019s crimes incur the risk of being fired or even assassinated. Neither Israel nor the U.S. government and its corporate media will tolerate any criticism of the illegal Israeli occupation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":222169,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[928,532,101,100,2898,87,865,2414,2415,2416,767,771,427,85,2897,880,99,92,1025,886],"class_list":["post-222167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-palestine-israel-gaza-genocide","tag-bds-boycott-divestment-sanctions","tag-colonialism","tag-cultural-violence","tag-direct-violence","tag-ecocide","tag-gaza","tag-genocide","tag-israeli-apartheid","tag-israeli-army","tag-israeli-occupation","tag-middle-east","tag-nakba","tag-palestine","tag-palestine-israel","tag-sociocide","tag-state-terrorism","tag-structural-violence","tag-violent-conflict","tag-west-bank","tag-zionism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=222167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222167\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/222169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}