JERUASLEM, Israel, Dec. 14 (UPI) -- Israeli forces killed four Islamic Jihad militants said to be on their way to attack the Karni cargo terminal on the Gaza Strip's border with Israel Wednesday.
The air-launched strike sent a huge plume of black smoke and the army spokesman said the "large explosion was ... caused by the large quantity of explosives that were inside the vehicle."
The Palestinian Interior and National Security Ministry confirmed four people were killed in that attack. The Palestinian Maan news agency said all of them were ostensibly of the Saraya al Quds, the Islamic Jihad's armed wing.
Several hours later Israel struck another car, reportedly belonging to an Islamic Jihad leader in the Gaza Strip Khader Habib. According to the Haaretz newspaper Habib jumped out of the car when he heard an Israeli aircraft in the vicinity and was saved. An Israeli military source said the attack targeted a car with Islamic Jihad militants who had been involved in recent rocket and mortar bomb attacks on Israel but the car was not hit.
The Islamic Jihad has kept on fighting Israel despite the temporary ceasefire. According to the army's figures the Islamic Jihad has been responsible for 16 of the 22 Israeli fatalities in this year's suicide bombings.
The Islamic Jihad's Dec. 5 suicide bombing in Netanya, in which five Israeli civilians were killed, led Israel to resume its controversial targeted killings in the Gaza Strip.
Israeli officials have said they stopped targeted killings in the West Bank because their control there is such that they can -- and do -- arrest the wanted people, interrogate them and glean more intelligence. Wanted people were killed but that happened in battle.
Such policing operations are impossible in Gaza.
Sunday the High Court of Justice resumed deliberations on the policy of targeted killings. A panel of three Supreme Court judges considered an appeal that the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel and the Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights and the Environment filed in 2002.
Their attorneys, Michael Sfard and Avigdor Feldman, argued that targeted killings are war crimes verging on crimes against humanity.
International humanitarian law recognized only two kinds of people: Civilians, who must not fight and must never be targets, and combatants who, in most cases, are legitimate targets and have a right to fight. Combatants wear uniforms, carry their arms openly and have a command structure, Sfard noted.
Palestinians suspected of having attacked Israeli civilians are still, "civilians ... protected persons," Sfard argued. They may be attacked "only when they are directly involved in combat, or at least when they are enroute to the planned target," he maintained.
"The moment the civilian returns home, the moment he is not in active combat, even if he intends to take part in (fighting) again, at a later date, he ceases being a legitimate target, but he may be arrested and tried for taking part in fighting," Sfard and Feldman said in their brief.
Deputy State Attorney Shai Nitzan argued that the rules of armed conflict govern the battle with the terrorist organizations. They are identical to laws of war and differ from the laws concerning a belligerent occupation.
As the battle against international terror spread around the world to include Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries, international law experts have reached an "almost consensus" that the laws of war govern also the confrontations between states and big terror organizations, Nitzan argued.
Most experts who participated in an International Red Cross sponsored conference in Geneva, in 2004, agreed that a confrontation with armed groups outside the control of the authorities should be considered "an armed conflict" in which rules of war apply, he added.
All the participants in another conference, held in Geneva last September, agreed that a targeted killing in an area under belligerent occupation "shall not be considered illegal" providing several conditions are met: It is in an area over which the occupier has no effective control, the targeted person is involved in serious hostile activity, there is credible intelligence that he will continue those activities. and there is no other solution to the threat he poses. In other words, there is no option of arresting or capturing that person.
"This is the sweeping decision of all the experts in the conference," Nitzan said.
The appeal was originally presented after an Israeli plane dropped a one-ton bomb on a house in Gaza in an attempt to kill a Hamas commander, Salah Shehadeh.
The blast killed 14 people and wounded more than 150.
Since then Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip and Nitzan asked the court to rule that the issue, concerning Gaza, is not justifiable.
The last soldier left Gaza on September 12, and, "Since then the rules of belligerent occupation... no longer apply in the Gaza Strip," he said.
The Gazans are no longer considered protected persons under the 1949 Geneva Conventions and the rules concerning the armed conflict there are now the rules of war, he maintained.
"Since the Israel Defense Forces' soldiers left the Gaza Strip completely ... fighting there is carried out in alien territory, outside the state's territory ... and is similar to (fighting in) the area of a foreign state from which hostile acts are launched against the State of Israel," he said.
According to the army's figures Gazans have this year launched some 165 Qassam rocket and mortar bombs attacks into Israel. That is the "dominant mode of attacks," according to the latest figures of GHQ's Operations Directorate.
Israeli attacks "especially those carried out in areas outside the state (of Israel) ... are not justiciable and that includes the operations in Gaza," Nitzan argued.
Sfard maintained Israel still controls Gaza. It controls border crossings (except Rafah), Gaza's imports and exports, its population registry, the air space and its coast. One does not have to physically be in an area in order to control it, he said.
The fact the army no longer bears responsibility for some civilian topics does not change the fact that Israel is still the occupier and, therefore, the rules of belligerent occupation apply, he said. This means the residents are protected persons under the Geneva conventions, he implied.
Supreme Court Judge Mishael Cheshin's questions, put forward as arguments with Sfard, indicated Cheshin did not agree Israel was still responsible for the Gaza Strip. Cheshin let the matter rest when the Supreme Court's President Aharon Barak whispered something to him.
