222467to222472

The Phenomenon of Palestinian Suicide Terrorism
effective means of fighting. Neither Protocol I nor any other provision of
international humanitarian law permit armed groups and individuals to strike at
civilians on the grounds that the armed forces of the enemy are too powerful to
defeat in combat. Some have even suggested that the prohibition of the killing of
civilians does not apply to the situation in Israel and the Occupied Territories
because, as Sheikh Ahmed Yassin has said, “are there any civilians in Israel They
are all soldiers, men and women, except those religious persons, who do not serve
in the army, the rest are all soldiers. The only difference is that they wear civilian
clothes when they are in Israel and military clothes when they come to us,” or “It is
a fact that Israel is one big military camp. There is no real civilian there” 22 or “there
are no [Israeli] civilian...the [Israeli] society as a whole attacks the land of
Palestine. They are all armed, they are all part of a military force, they are all
recruited...” 23 Such arguments are not only factually erroneous, they seek to blur
the distinction between civilians and combatants by describing a whole society as
“militarized.” International humanitarian law defines a civilian as any person who
is not a member of the armed forces of a party to the conflict. 24 Members of the
armed forces comprise all organized armed forces, groups and units which are
under a command responsible to the party, including militia and volunteer corps
forming part of such forces. 25 Israelis can be mobilized to serve in the armed forces
during most of their adult life, but under international humanitarian law a person
remains a civilian for as long as he is not incorporated into the armed forces.
Reservists when not in active duty are not members of the armed forces and can
therefore not be classified as combatants.
Moreover, the fact that some people within the population are not civilians does not
deprive the population of its civilian character and thus of its protection from direct
attack. 26 The occasional presence of soldiers among passengers on ordinary
commuter buses, diners in a café or shoppers in a market does not make such
venues legitimate targets for attack. In addition to prohibiting direct attacks on
civilians, international humanitarian law prohibits indiscriminate attacks, including
attacks which strike military objectives and civilians without distinction, as well as
attacks directed at a military objective, but which cause disproportionate harm to
civilians. 27 There are also obligations on both sides to take precautions to protect
civilians by removing civilians from the vicinity of military objectives and
avoiding locating military objectives near densely populated areas. 28
It has been advocated by Palestinian groups that the prohibition against attacking
civilians cannot not apply to settlers in the Occupied Territories, because the
settlements are illegal under international humanitarian law; settlements may have
military functions; and many settlers are armed. Many settlements do indeed have
military functions and before the “Disengagement Plan” they accounted for one
third of the total area of the Gaza Strip. 29 Settlements can hold military bases and
be heavily defended and although the militarization of settlements was strongest in
Gaza, some of the settlements in the West Bank also have military functions. The
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