Israeli special forces killed 15 Palestinians, including police, in a 2002 shooting spree ordered to avenge comrades slain in a West Bank ambush, an Israeli newspaper said on Friday, citing testimony by troops.
The army, commenting on the report in the Maariv daily, said Israeli forces had targeted "checkpoints manned by Palestinian policemen who facilitated the passage and actively assisted ... terrorists" who killed civilians and soldiers.
Two former commandos, their names withheld, told Maariv that after Palestinian militants killed six Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint near Ramallah in February 2002, they were told to attack Palestinian-run checkpoints elsewhere in the West Bank.
"'We are going to liquidate Palestinian policemen at a checkpoint in revenge for our six soldiers that they killed'," one ex-commando, quoted his commander as saying. He added that "the feeling was that this would be 'an eye for an eye."'
The report was the latest public challenge to Israel's official insistence that its forces have abided by a strict code of ethics in battling a 4-1/2-year-old Palestinian uprising.
In a statement, the army said that at the time, it had been "instructed by the political echelon to change the mode of operation and adjust it to the harsh reality on the ground."
That entailed "hunting down all those involved in terror activities, including members of the Palestinian Authority security apparatus" until the PA prevented "terror attacks emanating from Palestinian towns and cities," the army said.
The other interviewee described taking part in a raid on a group of Palestinian policemen drinking coffee at a checkpoint near where the Israeli soldiers had been ambushed.
"The moment we knew we were going to eliminate them, we no longer saw them as human," the ex-commando, now a student, said.
He said that after the first volley felled the Palestinians, he delivered a coup-de-grace to one of them, a man in his 50s.
"It was the first time I had killed and the first time I saw someone die. It was simply a pleasurable day," the former commando said.
The Palestinian Authority, which denied Israeli charges at the time that members of its security forces were complicit in attacks against Israelis, has since acknowledged that many of the men have moonlighted as militants.
There was no way of establishing on the basis of the Maariv report whether the 15 men killed in the reprisal raids had aided militant attacks. Human rights groups have accused Israel of carrying out extrajudicial killings in the West Bank and Gaza in contravention of international law.
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You're only one post away from a federal watch list.
This may sound simple on the surface but there's usually more to the story. But you're right that it would be he[[ to pay if the U.S. had done something like this.
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Jesus Christ--The reason for the season!
If you can read this, thank a teacher. If you can read this in English, thank a veteran.
If you're certain you know everything, there's little opportunity to learn anything.
If the USA had done this OH BOY!!!!
