On Thursday, April 11, 2024, the Israeli Supreme Court rejected the petition filed by Adalah Legal Center and Mezan Human Rights Foundation on behalf of the family of martyr Iyad Hallaq. The petition sought to challenge the decision made by the Police Internal Investigations Unit (Mahash) and the Israeli prosecution not to appeal the acquittal of the killer of their son in the Old City of occupied Jerusalem on May 30, 2020.
The petitioners argued that the decision made by the prosecution and Mahash to not appeal the acquittal was “unreasonable to such an extent” that the court should intervene. They demanded that the Supreme Court review and overturn the acquittal, claiming it would set a dangerous precedent that could allow soldiers and police officers to execute Palestinians without consequence. The petitioners contended that such a ruling could expand the already dangerously broad interpretation of “self-defense” in Israeli criminal law, effectively allowing Israeli forces to kill Palestinians based solely on their “personal feelings of danger.”
The petition also criticized the court’s justification for the acquittal, which relied in part on the fact that Iyad Hallaq was killed in the Old City during a time of heightened tensions and Jewish holidays, with the court referencing a “high probability of riots.” The petitioners argued that this reasoning reflected an institutionalized form of racism against Palestinians, which led to Hallaq being targeted and killed in cold blood.
The Supreme Court ruled that there was no legal basis for intervention in the decision made by the prosecution and Mahash, stating that as a general rule, the court cannot intervene in such decisions unless they fall into specific, exceptional circumstances. The court further maintained that the prosecution’s decision did not stem from external considerations and could not be categorized as a case of absolute unreasonableness or factual distortion. The court also rejected the petitioners’ argument that the decision had wide-reaching implications for police policy and the immunity of security forces when using lethal force against civilians, particularly Palestinians. According to the court, this decision applied only to the specific case at hand and was based on the specific facts of the file.
The petitioners reacted strongly to the ruling, noting that the Supreme Court’s refusal to intervene meant that the decision allowing the acquittal of Iyad Hallaq’s killer would stand, even though Iyad himself was innocent of any wrongdoing. They criticized the court’s decision as seriously contradictory to the reality on the ground, where Israeli authorities have repeatedly allowed the use of deadly force against Palestinians with impunity, often citing the same justification: the “personal feelings of danger” of the officer or soldier involved.
The petitioners argued that this ruling is part of a broader pattern in which Israeli soldiers and police officers are systematically exonerated for extrajudicial killings of Palestinians, effectively granting them legal immunity for unlawful killings. They emphasized that since the Central Court’s verdict, the prosecution had abandoned its role as a body responsible for holding the killer accountable, instead aligning with and defending the racially motivated and illegal justification for the killing.
They further argued that the prosecution’s decision not to appeal this acquittal is a misuse of their nearly unchecked power, leaving the legal system complicit in distorting the truth and creating a reality in which the aggressor, the killer of an innocent person, is treated as the “innocent” party.
This ruling, according to the petitioners, further entrenches a system where the Israeli legal system shields security forces from accountability, perpetuating a culture of impunity for the killing of Palestinians.
