A Spanish judge ruled Thursday to open a probe into senior Israeli officers involved in the 2002 assassination of senior Hamas terrorist Salah Shehadeh. The judge, Justice Fernando Andreu, said the assassination may have been a crime against humanity.
Andreu said the strike on Shehadeh may have been illegal due to the fact that Shehadeh's home was located in a densely populated area, and several civilians were killed in the strike. He invoked a law allowing Spain to prosecute crimes of terrorism or genocide even if they are committed beyond Spain's borders and do not involve Spanish citizens.
Among those included in the probe are former Israeli Air Force commander Dan Halutz and Minister of National Infrastructure Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, who at the time of the Shehadeh killing served as Defense Minister. Both men approved the strike.
Shehadeh was among the founders of Hamas's armed forces, and headed the armed forces in Gaza at the time of his death. He was responsible for the murder of dozens of Israelis in hundreds of terrorist attacks, including the murder of five young students in the pre-army academy in Atzmona and mortar shell attacks on Jewish towns in and near Gaza.
Shehadeh was killed in an IAF airstrike in July of 2002. Fourteen others were killed as well, including his wife and a daughter.
Several Arab Israeli and Israeli leftist organizations have attempted to put senior IDF officials on trial for the deaths of the civilians killed in the strike on Shehadeh, but such attempts have repeatedly been overruled by the High Court. Those who authorized the Shehadeh strike have faced charges abroad as well – in 2005, former IDF Chief of Staff Moshe (Boogie) Yaalon was nearly arrested in New Zealand due to similar accusations, and in 2007 an American group attempted to charge Public Security Minister Avi Dichter with war crimes.