AP photo: Ewijan after he was taken to the morgue
by Michael
Last night, in the Ash Sheikh Musallem district of Nablus’s Old city, undercover agents of the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) carried out two extra-judicial assassinations.
According to eyewitness accounts, the IOF undercover soldiers entered the area in civilian clothing, in a civilian car, and shot Hani Ewijan, 29 and Ameid al Masri, 26. According to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) press release, Ewijan was a member of the Al-Quds brigades (a militant wing of Islamic Jihad), and al Masri was a civilian not involved in any political activity. During the assassination, al Masri was killed and Ewijan was seriously wounded, and transported to a hospital where he died from injuries sustained. The two men were unarmed shot while playing soccer with their friends and realatives.
In respose to these attacks, there is an almost total strike in Nablus’s Old City, and there were at least two non-violent protests. One involved school boys who marched from the Old City, down the main street towards Balata Camp before turning around and marching back up, past the demolished Muqtada. The other involved mostly adults, and numbered almost 2,000 people.
These attacks are a continuation of Israel’s policy of extra-judicial “targeted assassinations.” Those who are killed are denied the ability to see the evidence against them, or to defend themselves in a court of law. Israel is obliged under article 3 of the First Geneva Convention to the provision prohibiting “passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgement pronounced by a regularly constituted court, affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.” The PCHR reports that “the failure of the international community and the High Contracting Parties of the Fourth Geneva Convention to take effective steps to stop Israeli war crimes has served to encourage Israel to commit more war crimes against Palestinian civilians.”