Are Israel And Palestine At War? Israeli Soldiers Urged To 'Shoot To Kill' Palestinians, Human Rights Watch Says

A handful of senior Israeli officials have expressed support for “shoot-to-kill” military defense tactics against Palestinians, the Human Rights Watch said in a report published Monday.

The officials “have been encouraging Israeli soldiers and police to kill Palestinians they suspect of attacking Israelis even when they are no longer a threat” while others have “failed to repudiate the calls for excessive use of force,” the advocacy group said in their report.

More than 150 cases of security forces fatally shooting Palestinians suspected of attacking Israelis have occured since Oct. 2015, according to Human Rights Watch.

The notion of killing an armed terrorist was previously supported by Israeli Police Minister Gilad Erdan, Human Rights Watch reported.

“The question of course depends on circumstances,” Erdan told a radio interviewer in October 2015. “There are clear instructions to the Israeli police. As soon as a police officer feels danger to himself or any other citizen, he needs to shoot according to the regulations. It’s clear. We don’t want to endanger any citizen or police officer. And also, every attacker who sets out to inflict harm should know that he will likely not survive the attack.”

The Human Rights Watch report was published two days before an awaited verdict due on Wednesday in Israel. In that contentious soldier-shooting case, then-19-year-old Israeli Sergeant Elor Azaria shot and killed an injured and immobile Palestinian attacker who had attempted to wound an Israeli soldier in March 2016.

Azaria, whose case was put on trial in military court, was the "only security officer to face trial for the shooting death of a Palestinian within the past year," the group reported.

While some Israeli officials have made statements that appear to support 'shoot-to-kill' tactics, others expressed their opposing opinions.

While commenting on Azaria's case, Israeli Defense Force Cheif of Staff Gadi Eisenkot said "an 18-year-old man serving in the army is not ‘everyone’s child,'" the Times of Israel reported. "He is a fighter, a soldier, who must dedicate his life to carry out the tasks we give him. We cannot be confused about this."