JERUSALEM (AFP) -- Human rights groups have accused Israel of encouraging a shoot-to-kill policy after a wave of incidents in which police shot dead Palestinians involved in, or accused of, attacking Israelis.
The alleged practice of killing suspects without trying to arrest them has caused concern after a series of deadly Palestinian attacks also resulted in the perpetrators' deaths -- and not always at the scene.
In a rare move, a Jerusalem court on Sunday indicted a border police officer after he shot and killed, unprovoked, a Palestinian teenager during a May demonstration in the occupied West Bank.
For some, the charge of manslaughter in the case was not strong enough, and Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch's comments that "a terrorist who strikes civilians should be killed" indicate no further such investigations will take place.
"Aharonovitch's statement and its application on the ground show that the authorities simply want these incidents to end - with the terrorist killed at the scene rather than brought into the justice system," Carolina Landsmann wrote in Haaretz newspaper.
Israeli rights group B'Tselem says that one of the first victims of "extrajudicial executions" was Abd al-Rahman Shaludi, a 21-year-old Palestinian from East Jerusalem who rammed his car into Israeli pedestrians on Oct. 22, killing a young woman and a baby.
He was shot at the scene by police and died several hours later. more
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