Image: File photo shows Israeli soldiers firing tear gas at Palestinians demonstrating against the Israeli military offensive on the Gaza Strip in the village of Beit Omar, north of the occupied West Bank town of al-Khalil (Hebron).
Human rights groups have censured the Tel Aviv regime for encouraging a shoot-to-kill policy, following a spate of incidents in which Israeli troopers fatally shot Palestinians suspected of attacking Israelis.
The rights groups stated that the practice of killing suspects at the scene without trying to arrest and prosecute them is a cause of concern.
Moreover, the suspects’ families face the likelihood of having their homes razed in a punitive measure, the rights groups added.
Israeli rights group, B’Tselem, said it was “extremely disturbed” by Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch’s comments on shooting to death suspects at the scene, describing the remarks as “provocative” and encouraging “execution without trial.”
Another Israeli rights group, the so-called Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), said in a statement that the expectation that “police officers will act as jury, judge and executioner, is improper and unacceptable.”
Amnesty International also noted that it has “strong suspicions” about a policy of “deliberate killings” by Israeli forces.
Amnesty’s researcher and campaigner, Saleh Hijazi, said the number of shootings of Palestinians by Israeli soldiers in the occupied West Bank has gone up.
On Sunday, a court in East al-Quds (Jerusalem) charged an Israeli policeman, identified as Ben Deri, with manslaughter in the shooting death of a Palestinian teenager during a demonstration in the occupied West Bank.
Palestinian officials said 17-year-old Nadeem Nuwarah along with another teenage protester was shot dead during clashes between Israeli forces and Palestinian demonstrators on the Nakba Day (the Day of Catastrophe) in the West Bank town of Beitunia on May 15.
Video footage showed a group of five or six Israeli police officers in the area, one of whom could be seen firing at the time when the two teenagers were hit.
According to Palestinian health authorities, the teenagers were killed by live ammunition, with human rights groups saying that an autopsy conducted on Nuwarah confirmed that he was fatally shot by a live bullet. The family of the second teenager refused to allow a post-mortem.
