IDF REPRISAL KILLINGS?

Israeli Soldiers Report Reprisal Killings of Palestinians
By CHRISTINE HAUSER
JERUSALEM, June 3 - An Israeli newspaper reported on Friday that Israeli forces said they carried out "eye for an eye" attacks on Palestinian police officers in 2002 in revenge for the killing of six Israeli soldiers at a West Bank checkpoint....The report in the newspaper, Maariv, is based on interviews with soldiers, who were not named, discussing violence that is more than three years old. The report indicated that some of the targets of the killing were unarmed.

It is impossible to confirm the anonymous remarks, but the Israeli Army responded to the reports saying the events were part of a series of operations against terrorism in line with army orders.

The interviews in Maariv refer to an attack by Palestinian gunmen on a West Bank outpost on Feb. 19, 2002. Six Israeli soldiers were killed, and their attackers escaped. The Israeli Army said at the time that it believed that two squads of Palestinian gunmen had attacked the soldiers at an Israeli checkpoint at Ein Ariq, west of the Palestinian-controlled city of Ramallah. One squad opened fire on two soldiers on duty at the checkpoint, wounding two men, the army said. At least one gunman burst into the outpost where six other off-duty soldiers were relaxing and killed them, it said.

The retaliation began that same night and continued through the night, according to the soldiers. In one of the Maariv interviews, a soldier identified as "D" said his commander described their mission: "Six of our soldiers were killed, engineering soldiers, at a checkpoint, and we are going out on a revenge operation. We are going to kill Palestinian policemen at a checkpoint, as blood revenge for the six of our soldiers who were killed." "An eye for an eye," the soldier was quoted as saying in Maariv. He said that he and other soldiers waited in ambush for Palestinian policemen suspected of having operated the checkpoint where the Israelis were killed. Units were sent to other West Bank checkpoints as well.

Referring to the killing of one Palestinian, the soldier said. "About five of us sprayed him at the same time. I emptied a magazine in him." A member of a reconnaissance unit said they were instructed to go to three checkpoints near Nablus and shoot Palestinian police officers regardless of whether they were armed. "We didn't raise the issue of how to identify Palestinian policemen," the soldier was quoted as saying. Maariv quoted another soldier as saying: "My conscience is most quiet. As far as I am concerned the Palestinian police committed terror operations, and if the political and commanding echelons decided that the operation was the correct thing to do, then I want to do it."

"I did not go with a knife between my teeth and to suck blood," he said, explaining that he did what he did "only because I had to get back at the Palestinian policemen for what they did."

Maariv's headline said 15 Palestinian policemen were killed that night.

In response to the Maariv report, the Israeli Army on Friday issued a statement saying that on Feb. 19, 2002, Israeli forces operated against Palestinian Authority targets in the West Bank.

"Among those targets were checkpoints manned by Palestinian policemen who facilitated the passage and actively assisted the terrorists who passed through this checkpoint to carry out murderous attacks against Israeli civilians and soldiers," it said. "After the killing of the six soldiers, the army was instructed by the political echelon to change the mode of operation and adjust it to the harsh reality on the ground," the army statement said.