HAIFA, Tuesday, July 23, 2019 (WAFA) - The purported apology Ehud Barak made today for the October 2000 killing of 13 Palestinian citizens of Israel lacks all value so long as no indictments have been filed against the Israeli police officers responsible for the killings, said Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel.

"This purported apology also has no meaning while police violence against Palestinian citizens of Israel continues to this very day," it said in a press release responding to the apology by Barak, then prime minister of Israel, for the police killing of the 13 Palestinians.

Adalah represented the families of the 13 young Palestinians killed by Israel police in October 2000.

"Ehud Barak was directly responsible for the killing of 13 Arab youths in October 2000. He ordered Israeli police to deploy deadly means – including snipers – to reopen Highway 65 during the demonstrations, and he remained indifferent to the resultant killing and wounding of hundreds of protestors on 1-2 October 2000," said Adalah. "Barak‘s orders also justified the police‘s continued use of snipers during the subsequent days of protest."

Barak, who now heads the Israel Democratic Party and intends to run in the September Israeli elections, said in a radio interview today that protesters should not be killed by their country‘s security.

"There is no place for protesters to be killed by their country‘s security forces. I bear responsibility for everything that happened during my tenure as prime minister, including the October 2000 events,” he said. "Once again I want to expresses condolences and apologize to the families whose pain must be infinite."

Not a single Israeli officer or official has been indicted for the killings and the Police Investigation Unit decided in 2005 not to pursue any indictments against its members. In January 2007, the Israeli Attorney General also closed the investigation files into the killings.

M.K.