Latest Israel Defense Forces Stories

GAZA (Reuters) - An Israeli warplane fired a missile at a target in the northern Gaza Strip on Thursday, but it fell in an open area and caused no injury, witnesses said. The strike came amid heavy shooting as Palestinians fired rockets at Israel and Israeli troops fired back with artillery in fighting touched off by Israel's killing of a leading militant in response to a suicide bombing that killed five. The Israeli army said the air force had attacked an access road to sites from...

By Tali Caspi JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel's army must stop using Palestinian civilians as "human shields" in operations against suspected Palestinian militants, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled on Thursday. Palestinian and Israeli human-rights watchdog groups had sought the ruling. The court's decision that the practice is illegal under international law hardened a temporary injunction issued in 2002. "The army has no right to use civilians as human shields ... It is cruel and...

JENIN, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers shot dead three Palestinian militants near the West Bank town of Jenin on Thursday, a Palestinian security source said. The confrontations erupted during an Israeli incursion overnight, apparently to arrest gunmen in the occupied territory, witnesses said.

By Dan Williams JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel will not prosecute police who shot dead 13 Israeli Arabs during protests in 2000 because of a lack of evidence as to exactly who was responsible, a Justice Ministry inquiry said on Sunday. The 80-page report drew anger from the Arabs who make up a fifth of Israel's population and have long complained of discrimination by the Jewish majority. The investigation looked into the killing by police of 13 Arabs in October 2000 during violent...

By Dan Williams CAMP BAR-LEV, Israel (Reuters) - An Israeli military tribunal sentenced an ex-sergeant to eight years in jail on Thursday for killing a British activist who was trying to protect Palestinian civilians during violence in Gaza in 2003. The sentence was the harshest punishment meted out to an Israeli soldier for actions in a combat zone since the start of a Palestinian uprising nearly five years ago. Taysir Hayb, a Bedouin Arab soldier, was convicted in June of manslaughter for...

By Dan Williams CAMP BAR-LEV, Israel (Reuters) - An Israeli military tribunal sentenced an ex-sergeant to eight years in jail on Thursday for killing a British activist who was trying to protect Palestinian civilians during violence in Gaza in 2003. Taysir Hayb was convicted in June of manslaughter in the 2003 shooting death of Tom Hurndall, a 22-year-old activist with the pro-Palestinian International Solidarity Movement who died in London in January 2004 after lying in a coma for nine...

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli helicopter gunships fired several missiles at a target near the major Jewish settlement of Ariel in the occupied West Bank on Friday, Palestinian witnesses said. The objective of the strike, which came hours after Israel carried out air raids in Gaza in retaliation for a deadly Palestinian rocket attack, was not immediately known. Israel had reaffirmed its intention to resume its assassination policy against Palestinian militant leaders following a suicide...