IDF Deputy Chief Halutz Slammed Over Shehadeh Bombing in Yesh Gvul Posters

Large posters calling for the dismissal of Israel Defense Forces Deputy Chief of Staff Major General Dan Halutz went up in Jerusalem yesterday in the kick-off to a campaign headed by the Yesh Gvul organization and the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel.

The posters bore a picture of Halutz, former commander of the Israel Air Force, and text reading: "Fly Halutz home - restore the IDF's combat ethics."

Ramat Gan refused to allow the posters to be displayed on its municipally-owned billboards. The groups plan to put up 1,300 posters around the country.

The two organizations, together with a number of public figures, are waging their campaign based on Halutz's part in the Israel Air Force operation to assassinate Hamas leader Salah Shehadeh, in which a one-ton bomb was dropped in a residential neighborhood of Gaza City. The bomb killed 14 people, many of them children.

The petitioners argue that Halutz, who was at the time the commander of the IAF, should be barred from holding a senior position in the IDF.

The activists plan to display the posters in other cities around the country next week.

Haifa, Ramat Hasharon and Rehovot agreed to allow the posters to be displayed on municipal billboards. Tel Aviv has postponed making a decision on whether or not to allow display of the posters.

Jerusalem allowed the posters' display only after Yesh Gvul's lawyer, Yossi Arnon, sent the city a letter indicating the municipality had no legal right to forbid their posting.

Yesh Gvul announced that it would take legal action against cities that refused to allow display of the posters. An organization spokesman said the campaign is not focusing on Halutz but rather on the "automatic immunity granted to senior IDF officers who direct actions that are liable to be described as war crimes."

Ten of the people who signed the "pilots' letter," in which they refused to carry out assignments in the territories, petitioned the High Court of Justice on Sunday morning - along with members of Yesh Gvul and leading academic and literary figures - to demand the court block Halutz's appointment as the IDF's deputy chief of staff.

The petition follows one six months ago to the High Court, filed by Yesh Gvul and five literary figures, asking that the Court order the IDF advocate general and the attorney general to launch a criminal investigation into the killing of the children in the assassination. This earlier request has yet to be reviewed by the Court.

The petitioners include former minister Shulamit Aloni, former attorney general Michael Ben-Yair, and Hebrew University of Jerusalem professors Ze'ev Sternhell and Yaron Ezrahi.

The petitioners write that "Halutz is responsible for one of the gravest acts in the IDF's history." Appointing him deputy chief of staff before a criminal investigation of the Gaza bombing is carried out would be illegal, they claim.