Case Number
HCJ 2117/02
Date Decided
4-28-2002
Decision Type
Original
Document Type
Full Opinion
Abstract
Facts: This petition was submitted during IDF operations against the terrorist infrastructure in the areas of the Palestinian Authority. (“Operation Defensive Wall.”) Petitioner requested explanations from the State regarding accounts of IDF fire on ambulances and injuries caused to the medical teams traveling in them. Petitioners requested that respondents be ordered to cease such activities. The State responded that these incidents were the result of the Palestinian’s use of ambulances for the transport of explosives. Even so, the State held firm in its obligation to fulfill its duties under international law. The State asserted that combat forces had been instructed to act in accordance with the rules of international law.
Held: The Supreme Court held that international law provides protection for medical stations and personnel against attack by combat forces. Article 19 of the First Geneva Convention forbids, under all circumstances, attack of stations and mobile medical units of the “Medical Service,” that is to say, hospitals, medical warehouses, evacuation points for the wounded and sick, and ambulances. However, the “Medical Service” has the right to full protection only when it is exclusively engaged in the search, collection, transport and treatment of the wounded or sick. Moreover, Article 21 of the First Geneva Convention provides that the protection of medical establishments shall cease if they are being “used to commit, outside their humanitarian duties, acts harmful to the enemy”, on condition that “a due warning has been given, naming, in all appropriate cases, a reasonable time limit and after such warning has remained unheeded.”
Keywords
International Law -- Laws of war
