Israeli Compliance With Legal Guidelines for Targeted Killing

Abstract

In December 2006, the Israeli High Court of Justice delivered its ruling in the “targeted killing case” (HCJ 769/02). The Court laid out four criteria that must be met for operations conducted as a part of Israel's targeted killing policy to be performed legally, and imposed two safeguards on the state to assure that each operation complies with these criteria. This research examines whether Israel has complied with the ruling in its post-2006 targeted killing operations. The article presents strong evidence suggesting that Israel generally complies with the Court's four requirements, although there is insufficient information to render a definitive conclusion regarding requirement #3, the principle of proportionality. However, the evidence also casts doubt on Israel's conformity with the two safeguards. The most significant issues revolve around Israel's implementation of and compliance with safeguard #1, the independent ex-post investigative committee, which ought to review operations that cause civilian casualties. The concerns include the committee's composition, objectivity, and independence. In addition, Israel's evolving understanding of the legal status of terrorists has significantly narrowed the jurisdiction of the committee and the HCJ's ruling more generally. These issues are exacerbated by the absence of evidence that safeguard #2, judicial oversight, has occurred.

Keywords: Israel, Targeted Killing, HCJ 769/02, Israel Law Review, ILR