High Court orders state to explain refusal to exhume commandos (1)
"The High Court of Justice has ordered the state to justify its refusal to allow the corpses of two naval commandos killed in a 1997 Lebanon raid to be exhumed for genetic identification".

"Justices Tova Strasberg-Cohen and Izhak Englard and Court President Aharon Barak heard an appeal yesterday submitted by the parents of the two soldiers - Raz Tabi and Guy Golan - and then gave Defense Minister Yitzhak Mordechai and Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein 21 days to explain their decision. The court also ordered the state to explain its failure to hold state funerals for the two soldiers".

"The justices did not accede to the parents' demand that the army's chief rabbi, former chief of personnel and chief of casualties be ordered to explain why the soldiers' remains were rushed to burial after only a cursory identification, without the parents' having been notified".

"Hezbollah returned the remains in an exchange about six months ago, some 10 months after the foiled raid. At yesterday's hearing, the parents described the emotional difficulties of visiting the graves".

Amnesty International: Israel's High Court should end the shame of torture
The long-postponed review of some interrogation methods used by the General Security Service (GSS) starting on Wednesday in "Israel's" High Court must bring to an end the shame of the effective legalization of {torture} in the country, Amnesty International said today.
The methods to be reviewed include extremely violent shaking (still used despite causing the death of a detainee in 1995); sleep deprivation for periods of up to several days; forcing detainees to remain in painful positions for hours on end; forcing detainees to listen to incessant screeching music; prolonged squatting; confinement to cupboard-sized rooms and exposure to heat and cold.
""Israel" is the only country in the world to have effectively legalised {torture} by authorising interrogators to use these methods," the organisation added.
In recent years, the "Israeli" High Court has frequently shown a willingness to sacrifice justice for security considerations and has more than once refused to issue injunctions banning the use of physical force during interrogation.
"It is now time for the court to speak out to end practices which contravene "Israel's" international commitment to end torture," Amnesty International urged.
"By outlawing torture and ill-treatment during interrogation the court would finally fulfil its sacred obligation to uphold justice, ethics and human rights."
The hearing on the matter was first scheduled in January 1998 by Aharon Barak, President of the "Israeli" High Court, after a case involving Fu'ad ‘Abed Qur'an, a university student,  interrogated - like hundreds of other Palestinians - by these methods.  A sitting held in May 1998 was immediately adjourned. After hearing the petitions Chief Justice Barak commented that the question should be dealt with by the legislature.
The former {United Nations} Special Rapporteur on Torture said in his 1991 report: "Under circumstances in which torture is practised or condoned by the authorities, it is the judiciary which forms the last bastion for the protection of citizens' basic rights."
"The High Court should not further postpone the case; it should not pass the buck to the Knesset and it should certainly not rule in favour of practices amounting to torture," Amnesty International said.
Background
{Torture} has been effectively legalised in "Israel" by various means:
1) secret guidelines to a report by the Landau Commission into interrogation methods in 1987 which authorized the GSS to use "a moderate measure of physical pressure" during interrogations.
2) a ministerial committee which has continued to approve the use of physical pressure by the GSS and, since 1994, has allowed the use of "increased physical pressure".
3) the "Israeli" High Court of Justice, which in individual cases has ruled that physical pressure can be used against detainees.
"Israel" uses the excuse that "torture might be necessary to save a roomful of people from a ticking bomb". However, under international law torture is always prohibited. Article 2 (2) of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which "Israel" ratified in 1991, states that: "No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture."
In addition, torture is used systematically against hundreds of {Palestinians} every year, even in situations where no "ticking bomb" is involved. The mockery of this argument is shown by the fact that in the majority of cases interrogators take weekends off, using interrogation methods constituting torture only from Sunday to Thursday.
The {United Nations} Committee against Torture, a committee of international experts which reviews countries' application of the United Nations Convention against Torture, stated in 1997 and 1998 that "Israel's" interrogation methods constituted {torture or ill-treatment} banned by the convention.

  January Friday 22-1999:

"Israel" to probe "mishandling of soldiers' remains"… (1)
"The "Israeli" army on Monday announced an inquiry into whether the remains of two soldiers should be exhumed for identification following the mishandling of a grisly body exchange with Lebanese resistance men", a reuters report said.

"Announcement of the investigation was the latest development in an affair that began with an "Israeli" botched commando raid in south Lebanon in 1997 in which 12 occupation soldiers were killed.

Distraught families of two of the dead have charged that the army added body parts returned in the swap to their sons' graves without consulting them and without properly establishing which parts belonged to which soldier", the report said.

"The "Israeli" army said the investigation commission, to be headed by a retired Supreme Court judge, would start work in the next few days and had 90 days to issue its "findings and recommendations.''

"The commission was asked to check the way the body parts brought from Lebanon were identified and the way the parts were buried,'' an army spokesman said.

"Members of the amphibious commando unit, known as Flotilla 13, landed on Lebanon's shore on the night of September 5, 1997, for an operation against resistance men in Insariyeh, north of Tyre".
"The 16-member squad ran into an ambush of the Islamic Hezbollah (Party of God) group. A helicopter rescue team retrieved 11 bodies, leaving behind the remains of officer Itamar Ilya, Reuters said.

"Last June, "Israel" exchanged the bodies of 40 Lebanese resistance men for Ilya's remains but the body bag that arrived from Lebanon contained the parts of more than one soldier, including five feet, the report added.

""Israeli" Army officials buried the extra parts in the graves of two other commandos killed in the raid -- Guy Golan and Raz Tabi."

"Parents of the two soldiers said the army informed them about the extra parts only after adding them to the graves. They are demanding that their sons be exhumed for DNA identification."
Religious law requires that Jews be buried intact when possible and that their remains should lie undisturbed.

"This second burial in the dead of night is unheard of. What happened to their respect for the dead? What happened to their respect for the family?'' Guy Golan's father, Yoram, told Army Radio last November.

"Israeli" army chief Shaul Mofaz later apologized for the way the parts were buried and said the parents should have been consulted.

"Raz Tabi's father, Nachshon, said the probe did not meet his demands. "I lost all trust in the army chief and the defense minister. No army commission is acceptable...I demand a criminal investigation,'' he told the "Israeli" army Radio".