25 Jan. 07: B'Tselem calls on the army to cease using undercover units in combat   operations, following the incident in Ramallah

In the afternoon of Friday, 4 January 2007, a special unit of Israeli military forces in civilian dress entered Ramallah's city center to arrest Palestinians. At around 3:00 P.M., the forces surrounded the building in which the wanted persons were hiding. When they saw that one of them, Rabi'a Hamed, was running from the building, the undercover soldiers opened fire, seriously wounding Hamed, who managed to escape.

The gunfire exposed the identity of the undercover unit. Other Israeli forces, including several Border Police jeeps, bulldozers, and two attack helicopters were deployed to the city to rescue the undercover soldiers. Dozens of Palestinians assembled in the area of the building in which the undercover soldiers were located. They threw stones and petrol bombs at the undercover soldiers and at the soldiers and Border Policemen who came to rescue them. B'Tselem also received reports that armed Palestinians opened fire.

During the incident, which lasted about two hours, military bulldozers made an escape route, destroying much property in the process, including dozens of cars, merchants' stands, and wagons with goods for sale. The attack helicopters provided cover with machine-gun fire. Military sources contended that the helicopter fire was aimed at "open areas," but this contention is questionable; the incident took place in the city center, where there are no open areas, and several Palestinian civilians were injured, and at least one person was killed, by the helicopter fire. The gunfire by the helicopters and the ground forces also struck civilians who were in the area by chance and were not taking part in the confrontation. Journalists and medical personnel, too, were exposed to the gunfire: paramedics informed B'Tselem that they treated and evacuated the wounded while shots were flying over their heads. The journalist Fadi Hassan 'Aruri was shot and seriously wounded.

The vegetable market in Ramallah after the incident on 4 Jan. 07. Photo: 'Abbas Mumani, AFP

Israeli gunfire killed four Palestinians. B'Tselem's investigation revealed that none of the four was armed when shot and that three of them did not take any part in the confrontation. The four fatalities were:

• Khalil al- Bairuti, 36, a tea and coffee vender, who was shot near the al-Bira vegetable market;
• Yusef 'Adur, 24, a merchant in the open-air market, who was killed by helicopter gunfire;
• Jamal Jweiles, 29, from East Jerusalem, who was in the area by chance when the confrontation began, was shot and killed as he attempted to move his car from the approaching military bulldozers;
• 'Alaa Hamran, 16, who was shot in the head in the vegetable market, and died from his wounds at a hospital in the city. Hamran participated in the disturbances, but was not armed.

About forty other Palestinians were injured and taken to hospital. Ten of them suffered serious or critical injuries. Four Israeli soldiers suffered light injuries.

According to B'Tselem's investigation, twenty-two Palestinians were hit by live ammunition, and two were hit by rubber bullets. The other injured Palestinians suffered from gas inhalation, or were injured or trampled when they tried to flee the confrontation. At least six of the Palestinians injured were minors under eighteen years old, and at least six were over forty.

This incident is not unique. On the afternoon of 24 May 2006, for example, undercover forces entered a crowded area in Ramallah. The forces were exposed and attacked by people from the area and had to be rescued under fire, causing dozens of casualties. Eighty-four persons were taken to hospital: fifty had been hit by live ammunition, eight by rubber bullets, four suffered from gas inhalation, three were injured by stun grenades, and and regarding the remaining nineteen the cause of the injury is unknown to B'Tselem .

B'Tselem demands that the Israeli authorities take the following actions:

1. Open a Military Police investigation into suspicions of harming civilians in violation of the law

In every case in which civilians are killed by military forces' gunfire, a Military Police investigation should be opened to determine the circumstances in which the soldiers opened fire. In this case, the investigation is particularly vital, since the facts described above as well as reports of intense, indiscriminate gunfire, raise suspicion that the army and Border Police opened fire illegally, in breach of the principles of discrimination and proportionality established in international humanitarian law. The destruction of civilian property also raises the suspicion that the forces caused disproportionate damage in violation of international humanitarian law.

Furthermore, the decision to employ combatants in disguise to arrest wanted persons itself should be investigated. Such a decision increases the risk of injury to innocent passersby, a risk that sadly was realized. As mentioned, the action took place in the afternoon in the center of the city. In these circumstances, it was to be expected that many civilians would be in the area. Testimonies given to B'Tselem indicate that the vegetable markets and streets near where the undercover unit was operating were indeed full of people. None of these people knew of the secret operation and all were ignorant of the potential danger entailed in being in that place at that time. The planners of the operation anticipated the possibility that the undercover soldiers would be exposed and that it would be necessary to rescue them, and that a rescue effort would entail gunfire. Indeed, a large rescue force arrived at the scene within minutes. Anticipating all this, the planners also should have expected that many civilians would be caught in the crossfire and injured, especially in light of the similar incidents in the recent past in which civilians had been injured.

It is very doubtful that the military advantage anticipated from the arrest operation justified the anticipated injury to civilians. The fact that they decided to carry out the operation despite the harm it was likely to cause, raises suspicion that the operation's planners gave little consideration to the lives of the Palestinian civilians they endangered, in flagrant breach of the demands of the principle of proportionality.

For these reasons, B'Tselem calls on the Judge Advocate General to order a Military Police investigation to determine, first, whether in the given circumstances the decision to carry out the arrests was legal, and second, whether the security forces that took part in the incident harmed civilians and civilian objects in violation of law.

If illegal acts were indeed committed, B'Tselem demands that the persons responsible be prosecuted. B'Tselem also demands that the state compensate the Palestinian civilians injured by the security forces. The state must also compensate those whose property was damaged or destroyed by the bulldozers or by the gunfire by soldiers in the helicopters or on the ground.

2. Prohibit the use of undercover soldiers in combat actions

Since the outbreak of the second intifada, the State of Israel has argued that it is engaged in an armed conflict in the Occupied Territories , and that its forces are therefore subject to the laws of warfare. As B'Tselem has pointed out several times in the past, this approach is unacceptable, because it imposes the laws of warfare even on routine policing actions. As a result of its broad definition of the conflict, the army changed its open-fire regulations, and soldiers are now allowed to use live ammunition in many more situations than in the past. However, the laws of warfare, also, impose restrictions on security forces, among them the prohibition on perfidy, which forbids soldiers from feigning civilian status. This prohibition is customary international law, which is binding on Israel . Therefore, according to Israel 's approach – that the laws of warfare apply to all actions of its forces in the Occupied Territories – undercover operations, which breach the prohibition on perfidy, are illegal. The fact that Palestinians do not distinguish themselves from the civilian population does not release Israeli security forces from their obligation to do so. Furthermore, the undercover soldiers and the officials who dispatch them may also be guilty of war crimes, given that injuring or killing a person while breaching the prohibition on perfidy is a war crime under international criminal law.

The prohibition on perfidy was established to protect civilians, and follows directly from the basic rule of international humanitarian law that requires the sides to make a clear distinction between civilians and combatants and permits attacks only against military objects. Soldiers who disguise themselves as civilians endanger civilians and thus frustrate the objective of the principle of discrimination. One danger that the prohibition seeks to prevent is that civilians would be marked for attack because of the suspicion they are combatants in disguise. Another danger, which unfortunately was realized in the action carried out by the undercover soldiers in Ramallah, and in the similar cases that preceded it, is that civilians will be caught unawares in the combat area because they did not identify the disguised combatants among them.

B'Tselem urges the Judge Advocate General to instruct the army to immediately cease using undercover soldiers in any action that the army defines as combat.