הוועד הציבורי נגד עינויים בישראל

A number of legal codes apply simultaneously to Israeli military activity in the OPT, each of which places rights and duties on Israeli soldiers, commanders and the policymakers who deploy them: Israeli criminal law, international humanitarian law and international human rights law. The restrictions and limitations imposed by these three different legal systems are interrelated, and domestic laws are subject to the state’s obligations under international law.

Israeli criminal law, which is not applied to Palestinians in the OPT with the exception of East Jerusalem, is however applied to Israeli soldiers and commanders , and on every activity carried out by them no matter the locations. This is based on the expansion of the territorial jurisdictional authority of the military courts. Under Israeli criminal law, assassinations are, at least ostensibly, acts of murder, and to use the terminology of the Israeli Penal Code, premeditated murder. In order to maintain that these acts of killing are not in violation of the Penal Code the State of Israel must prove that there is a suitable criminal defense in Israeli criminal law.