TEL AVIV, December 13, 2008 (WAFA)- The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel is demanding the Israeli Attorney General to order a criminal investigation to determine whether crimes were committed in planning and execution of past targeted assassinations against Palestinians.

Israeli attorneys Avigdor Feldman and Michael Sfard wrote to Israeli Attorney General Menachem Mazuz a letter, asking him to clearly and unconditionally prohibit assassinations against Palestinians when detention is an alternative, and to prohibit giving advance approval to harming innocent bystanders.

They also demanded Mazuz to establish a committee to examine the constitutionality of past assassinations, as the Israeli High Court called for in a 2006 ruling.

Haaretz Magazine had published an investigation by Uri Blau that revealed the Israel Defense Forces approved assassinations in the West Bank even when detention appeared to be a viable alternative. In addition, Israeli echelons gave advance approval to assassinations that would kill innocent Palestinian bystanders.

In their letter, Feldman and Sfard quoted remarks by former Central Command head Major-General Yair Naveh that they say demonstrate criminal intent., and echo statements by Dan Halutz, the commanding officer responsible for the 2002 assassination of Hamas leader Salah Shahadeh. An Israeli F-16 dropped a 1-ton bomb on the apartment building in Gaza where Shahadeh was staying, killing him along with his wife, his daughter and 15 Palestinian civilians, including 11 children between the ages of two months and 14 years.

In an interview with Haaretz a few months after the incident, Halutz maintained that Military Intelligence was not aware that innocent civilians might be in the apartment building that night, and when asked what a pilot feels when dropping a bomb, he famously replied, 'I feel a light bump to the plane as the bomb is released. A second later, it's gone, and that's all.'