A-G: It’s illegal to fire on suspects who don’t pose threat

Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein clarifies that it is illegal to shoot suspected terrorists after they have been neutralized and no longer pose a threat.

“The upholding of the regulations and principles that inform our actions is tested most during tense and trying times such as the current one,” he says in a written response to a query from the Arab-Israeli advocacy group Adalah.

The query was sent in light of the many recent cases in which suspected Palestinian attackers were killed by security forces during or after attacks. In one instance, during a terror attack at the Beersheba central bus station, an Eritrean man was mistaken for a terrorist, shot by a security guard, and then severely beaten by an enraged mob. He died shortly after.

The query also follows ambiguous statements from several right-wing politicians that could be read to imply that terrorists should be killed whether or not they still posed a threat.

“The use of a firearm to prevent an immediate life-threatening situation is permitted as long as there is concrete fear of such harm,” Weinstein says, adding, “To use a firearm after the threat to bodily integrity or human life has elapsed would constitute a deviation from the law.”