JERUSALEM — One case before the High Court of Justice this week seemed to encapsulate Israel’s dilemma throughout the 2-year-old Palestinian intifada: How to balance Israel’s security concerns with Palestinians’ human rights.
Ultimately, the court upheld the army’s policy of deporting relatives of Palestinian terrorists from the West Bank to the Gaza Strip — while imposing certain conditions.
Tuesday’s ruling came as Israeli officials, playing the juggling act that is Middle Eastern politics, alternately focused their attention on the conflict with the Palestinians and on the border with Lebanon, where Hezbollah was again heating up the situation.
Israeli officials had issued the deportation orders — along with a separate decision to destroy the homes of suicide bombers — in the hope that such actions would deter future terror attacks. Officials claim that there have already been cases of families stopping Palestinians from carrying out attacks for fear of Israeli punishment.
Explaining the choice facing the judges, Supreme Court President Aharon Barak wrote that in the present atmosphere of violence, “human rights cannot receive complete protection as if there were no terror, and state security cannot receive complete protection as if there were no human rights.”
In a unanimous ruling Tuesday, the expanded panel of nine justices upheld army plans to deport two Palestinians from the West Bank to Gaza.
A day later, Israel deported Intissar and Kifah Ajouri, the sister and brother of Ali Ajouri, who masterminded the July 17 double suicide bombing near Tel Aviv’s old Central Bus Station. Five people were killed in that attack.
Israeli troops killed Ali Ajouri in a recent operation.
The court ruled that the two had advance knowledge of the attacks being planned by their brother, and were in fact involved in the planning.
Israeli military officials also accused Intissar Ajouri of sewing the explosives belt used by the bombers.
The two entered Gaza via the Netzarim Crossing. They had been expected to be brought to the Erez Crossing, which the army declared a closed military zone to bar access to journalists who had gathered there.
But in an apparent effort to avoid media coverage, and after the Palestinian Authority said it would not accept them, the deportees were dropped off at Netzarim.
Israel gave each of them about $210 as an “adjustment grant” for their two-year exile in Gaza, a large sum by the standards of the current Palestinian economy.
The court had ruled Tuesday that the two could return to the West Bank after two years. It referred to the army’s action against them as a “relocation” rather than a deportation, saying the Palestinian areas of the West Bank and Gaza should be regarded as a single entity.
The court also ruled that the army must prove that those slated for relocation had advance knowledge or were involved in planning the attacks.
The ruling was denounced by the Palestinian Authority and drew criticism from some Israeli quarters.
Just the same, the court’s attempt to balance security and human rights was reflected in the fact that both the state prosecutor and a lawyer for the Palestinians claimed that the court had accepted their arguments.
Human rights lawyers had told the court that the policy constituted collective punishment and violated international law.
The state had argued that the deportations, along with house demolitions, were effective measures to punish terrorist attacks — and deter future ones.
In Tuesday’s ruling, the court blocked the deportation of a third Palestinian, Abdel Nasser Asida, brother of a Hamas militant who coordinated two shooting attacks near the settlement of Emanuel that left 17 people dead.
Asida loaned his brother a car and provided him with food and clean clothes, but the court ruled that this did not establish a connection with his brother’s terrorist activities.
Along with the issue of preventing Palestinian terror attacks, top Israeli officials had to contend with a possible renewal of tensions along the border with Lebanon.
The Security Cabinet met Monday to discuss an Aug. 29 Hezbollah attack on an army outpost along the border that left one Israeli soldier dead and two others wounded.
The Cabinet ministers decided against an immediate response, but Israeli security officials warned that the attack could signal attempts by Hezbollah to create a second front for Israel.
Following the attack, Israel asked a U.S. envoy to convey messages to Lebanon and Syria to rein in Hezbollah.
The tensions erupted amid reports that Syria has allowed 150 to 200 Al-Qaida operatives to settle in a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon.
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