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Israel’s Targeting of Hamas Commander Marwan Issa Was a Legal Operation
Palestinian fighters from the armed wing of Hamas take part in a military parade to mark the anniversary of the 2014 war with Israel, near the border in the central Gaza Strip, July 19, 2023. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa
Under authoritative international rules, Israel’s mid-March targeting of senior Hamas commander Marwan Issa was law-enforcing. Among other egregious crimes, Issa was a key planner of the October 7 rampage against Israeli civilians. Maj. Gen. Tamir Hayman, former chief of Israeli military intelligence, accurately described this Palestinian terrorist leader as Hamas’s “strategic mind.” To fully understand this law-based action, geopolitical context is necessary. In essence, the world legal structure compels a vigilante system of justice. It is against the background of continuing global anarchy that terror-beleaguered states must identify and operationally shape their counter-terrorism options.
Responding to intentionally indiscriminate, grand-scale Hamas violence, Israel’s terrorist-removing airstrike in March was an authentic act of law enforcement, one that precisely targeted Hamas commander Marwan Issa while he cowered in an underground Gaza compound. Faced with the persistent threat of Palestinian terrorism — a threat that could eventually escalate to include weapons of mass destruction — Israel has no reasonable choice but to eliminate Hamas leadership wherever deemed possible and cost-effective. This means a periodic resort to the targeting of terror-criminals.
Abandoning such a primary obligation would express more than an existential threat to Israel itself. It would also represent a potentially devastating threat to regional and even global security. An overriding example of such threat would be a direct Iranian attack on Israel that escalates into unconventional or nuclear war. Though Iran is pre-nuclear, any accelerating search for “escalation dominance” by Israel and Iran could still produce a nuclear conflict. This is because Iran already has access to radiation dispersal weapons and can already launch a conventional attack on Israel’s Dimona nuclear reactor.
Under binding international law, terrorism represents a crime that must be prevented and punished. As we may learn from both Roman and Jewish law (Torah), a “higher law” obtains. This core rule affirms the immutable principle of “No crime without a punishment.” It can be found, among other valid sources, in the London Charter of August 8, 1945, the founding document of the historic Nuremberg Tribunal.
In law, terrorists are known as hostes humani generis or “common enemies of humankind.” While the world legal system allows certain insurgencies in matters of self-determination, there is nothing about such matters that can ever justify deliberate attacks on civilians. In this connection, it is important to remember that an integral part of all criminal law is the underlying question of mens rea, or “criminal intent.”
On this point, there can be no reasonable comparison of Marwan Issa’s deliberate mass murder of Israeli noncombatants and the civilian harms now being suffered in Gaza. As an unambiguous matter of humanitarian international law, responsibility for all these harms falls entirely upon the “perfidious” behavior (i.e., use of “human shields”) of Hamas and Iran. It does not fall on Israeli forces acting to support legitimate and indispensable rights of national self-defense.
Under the binding laws of war, even where an insurgent use of force has “just cause,” it must still wage its fight with “just means.” The phrase “One man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter” is never more than an empty witticism. Jurisprudentially, this comparison contradicts the law.
Ordinarily, assassination, like terrorism, is a crime under international law. Under certain conditions, however, the targeted killing of terrorist leaders can represent a life-saving and heroic example of necessary law enforcement. In our self-defense-oriented world legal system, the only alternative to states launching precise targeting actions against terrorists would be to allow incessant terror-violence against the innocent. This is because terror-organizations like Hamas and terror-mentoring states like Iran display undisguised contempt for all ordinary criminal law expectations of extradition. The formal term for this openly ignored expectation is “extradite or prosecute” or (for the lawyers) aut dedere, aut judicare.
At first glance, to accept the targeted killings of terrorist leaders as law-enforcing remediation would seem to disregard the usual obligations of “due process.” But international legal relations are not overseen by the same civil protections offered by individual national governments, and terrorist leaders like Marwan Issa orchestrate unspeakably brutal attacks on men, women and children with manifest enthusiasm. On October 7, 2023, Hamas attackers perpetrated the rape-mutilation of males as well as females, of children as well as adults. Let no one forget the details. This assault was not about Palestinian “sovereignty,” “national self-determination” or “statehood.” It was an expression of the visceral “joys” of pure barbarism.
If Hamas and related groups are held immune for their crimes by civilized states, terror attacks could escalate to exploit chemical, biological or even nuclear elements. For the moment, a nuclear option would be limited to “only” a “dirty bomb” (radiation dispersal weapons), but this can change. In the foreseeable future, Iran could fashion and deploy an authentic chain-reaction nuclear explosive. In short order, such actions could spawn joint Iran-Hamas crimes against peace, crimes of war, and crimes against humanity.
The willfully indiscriminate nature of jihadist terrorist operations (not just Hamas) is well documented. The intentional blurring of lines between lawful and unlawful targets is rooted in certain generic principles of “holy war.” Several years ago, a recorded remark by Sheikh Omar Bakri Muhammad, then a prominent Muslim cleric in London, explained doctrinal linkages between Islamic terror and “holy war:” Said the sheikh, “We don’t make a distinction between civilians and non-civilians, innocents and non-innocents. Only between Muslims and unbelievers. And the life of an unbeliever (a Jew or Christian) has no value. It has no sanctity.”
As was learned yet again on October 7, 2023, jihadist attackers include gratuitous murder in their primal or pre-civilizational ideologies. The bottom line is that jihadist belief systems embrace the sacrificial slaughter of “unbelievers.” For Hamas and related terror groups, “military objectives” normally include elementary schools, bomb shelters, ice-cream parlors, civilian bus stops and elderly pedestrians. In law, these perpetrators ought never to be called “militants.” Whatever their alleged “just cause,” they always display criminal intent or mens rea.
Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and other terror groups remain dedicated to the primal idea that any peace agreement with Israel would represent an intolerable abomination to Islam. Facing these implacable enemies within the system of international law, Israel is entitled to the self-defending right to target terrorist leaders. Determining whether such remedies are militarily sound raises another question altogether.
In the final analysis, what is most noteworthy about the targeted killing of terrorist leaders like Marwan Issa is not its permissibility in law but its widespread unacceptability. Why is there a near-global unwillingness to endorse or merely acknowledge this established right?
International law is not a suicide pact. In current jurisprudence, an ancient principle still holds true: Ubi cessat remedium ordinarium, ibi decurritur ad extraordinarium, or “Where the ordinary remedy fails, recourse must be had to an extraordinary one.” It would be best, of course, if Israel didn’t have to resort to the targeted killing of terrorist adversaries, but in the present system of world law, this beleaguered country – which is smaller than Lake Michigan – has no choice.
Under international law, every state maintains the inherent right and corresponding obligation to protect its citizens from transnational criminal harms. In exceptional circumstances, this dual responsibility can extend to the targeted killing of terrorist leaders. If it were otherwise, world law would indeed be a suicide pact.
Under established international law principles governing insurgencies, the ends can never justify the means. A cause, even if it is arguably or seemingly legitimate, even if it is presumptively “sacred,” can never excuse premeditated violence against the innocent.
Furthermore: By the authoritative standards of contemporary international law, terrorists are akin to pirates in earlier times, subject to punishment (originally, hanging) by the first persons into whose hands they fall. At present, Hamas terrorists are international outlaws who fall within the operational scope of “universal jurisdiction.” This means, among other things, that any state can claim a valid right to arrest, prosecute and potentially target terrorist murderers even where there exist no geographic or citizen ties to the pertinent criminals.
In these matters, history warrants pride of place. Support for a limited right to the targeted killing of “common enemies of humankind” can be found in the classical writings of Aristotle, Plutarch and Cicero as well as in Jewish history. This history ranges from the Sicarii, who flourished at the time of destruction of the Second Temple, to the Lehi, who fought the British mandatory authority after World War II. If the worldwide community of states should ever choose to reject this right, it would then have to accept responsibility for any reciprocal violence launched upon innocent human beings.
The calculations are straightforward. Targeted killings, subject to applicable legal rules of distinction, proportionality, and military necessity, can on occasion offer the least unwelcome form of national self-protection. In such cases, especially where additional terror-crimes are still in the planning stage, the legal acceptability of violent self-help measures should be self-evident.
In our anarchic system of international law, this proposition lies beyond logical doubt. The world legal system is designed to protect everyone from foreseeable infringements of human rights and includes the corollary principle of universal cooperation.
In the best of all possible worlds, targeted killing would hold no defensible place in law-based counterterrorism. But we do not yet live in the best of all possible worlds, and the negative aspects of any such defensive action ought never to be evaluated apart from alternative policy consequences. If Israel had chosen not to target Marwan Issa so as not to injure the sensibilities of “civilized nations” (a phrase codified at Article 38 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice), more violence and death would have been inflicted upon many innocent human beings.
In the end, counterterrorism should always be governed by both legal and tactical criteria of assessment. If the expected human costs of a targeted assassination appear calculably lower than the expected costs of all other plausible self-defense options, such an assassination must emerge as the rational and moral choice. However odious it might at first appear, targeted killing in these circumstances could offer Israel the least injurious path to civilian security from insidious terror-violence.
Prof. Louis René Beres was educated at Princeton (Ph.D., 1971) and is the author of many books and scholarly articles dealing with international law, nuclear strategy, nuclear war, and terrorism. In Israel, Professor Beres was Chair of Project Daniel (PM Sharon). His twelfth and latest book is Surviving Amid Chaos: Israel’s Nuclear Strategy (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016; 2nd ed., 2018). A version of this article was originally published by The BESA Center.
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Majority of French People Oppose Macron’s Push to Recognize a Palestinian State, New Survey Finds
French President Emmanuel Macron delivers the keynote address at the IISS Shangri-La Dialogue security summit in Singapore, May 30, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Edgar Su
Nearly 80 percent of French citizens oppose President Emmanuel Macron’s push to recognize a Palestinian state, according to a new study that underscores widespread public resistance to the controversial diplomatic initiative.
Last week, Macron announced the postponement of a United Nations conference aimed at advancing international recognition of a Palestinian state as part of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with no new date set.
The UN summit — originally scheduled for June 16–18 — was delayed after Israel launched a sweeping preemptive strike on Iran, targeting military installations and nuclear facilities in what officials said was an effort to neutralize an imminent nuclear threat.
Last month, Macron said that recognizing “Palestine” was “not only a moral duty but a political necessity.” The comments followed him saying in April that France was making plans to recognize a Palestinian state at a UN conference it would co-host with Saudi Arabia. Israeli and French Jewish leaders sharply criticized the announcement, describing the decision as a reward for terrorism and a “boost” for Hamas.
The French people largely seem to agree now is not the right time for such a move. A survey conducted by the French Institute of Public Opinion (IFOP) on behalf of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF), the main representative body of French Jews, found that 78 percent of respondents opposed a “hasty, immediate, and unconditional recognition of a Palestinian state.”
Sondage Crif x Ifop : “Le regard des Français sur la reconnaissance par la France de l’État palestinien”
Une large majorité de Français (78 %) s’oppose à une reconnaissance immédiate et sans condition de l’État palestinien. Parmi eux, près de la moitié (47 %) estiment qu’une… pic.twitter.com/AX9gP6eMLe
— CRIF (@Le_CRIF) June 17, 2025
France’s initiative comes after Spain, Norway, Ireland, and Slovenia officially recognized a Palestinian state last year, claiming that such a move would contribute to fostering a two-state solution and promote lasting peace in the region.
According to IFOP’s recent survey, however, nearly half of French people (47 percent) believe that recognition of a Palestinian state should only be considered after the release of the remaining hostages captured by Hamas during the Palestinian terrorist group’s invasion of southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, while 31 percent oppose any short-term recognition regardless of future developments.
The survey also reveals deep concerns about the consequences of such a premature recognition, with 51 percent of respondents fearing a resurgence of antisemitism in France and 50 percent believing it could strengthen Hamas’s position in the Middle East.
France has experienced an ongoing record surge in antisemitic incidents, including violent assaults, following Hamas’s Oct. 7 atrocities, amid the ensuing war in Gaza.
According to local media reports, France’s recognition of a Palestinian state at the UN conference was expected to be contingent on several conditions, including a truce in Gaza, the release of hostages held by Hamas, reforms within the Palestinian Authority (PA) — which is expected to take control from Hamas after the war — economic recovery, and the end of Hamas’s terrorist rule in the war-torn enclave.
The PA has not only been widely accused of corruption and condemned by the international community for its “pay-for-slay” program, which rewards terrorists and their families for attacks against Israelis, but also lacks public support among Palestinians, with only 40 percent supporting its return to govern the Gaza Strip after the war.
Out of the 27 total European Union member states, Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Sweden have also recognized a Palestinian state.
Meanwhile, Germany, Portugal, and the UK have all stated that the time is not right for recognizing a Palestinian state.
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Jewish Leaders Plan ‘Emergency Mission’ to Washington, DC to Push US Gov’t for Antisemitism Protections
Thousands of participants and spectators are gathering along Fifth Avenue to express support for Israel during the 59th Annual Israel Day Parade in New York City, on June 2, 2024. Photo: Melissa Bender via Reuters Connect
Amid a record wave of antisemitic attacks and heightened geopolitical tensions in the Middle East, leaders from nearly 100 Jewish communities and over 30 national organizations across the US will descend on Washington, DC next week for an “emergency mission” aimed at pressing the federal government to bolster protections for Jewish Americans and increase support for Israel.
The meeting will be organized by the Jewish Federations of North America and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. The two-day gathering scheduled for June 25–26 will convene representatives from groups representing approximately 7.5 million American Jews. Participants plan to meet with members of Congress and the Trump administration to demand “strong and aggressive action” to thwart a surge in antisemitic violence and rhetoric, according to a press release.
“We are facing an unprecedented situation in American Jewish history where every Jewish institution and event is a potential target for antisemitic violence,” said Eric Fingerhut, president and CEO of the Jewish Federations of North America. “This is domestic terrorism, plain and simple, and defeating this campaign of terror is the responsibility of government.”
The meeting comes on the heels of a string of attacks on Jewish and pro-Israeli targets in places such as Washington, DC, and Boulder, Colorado, and amid growing fears over Iran’s role in backing groups hostile to Israel. Organizers link the current wave of antisemitism to the aftermath of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, in which over 1200 people were killed and 251 hostages were abducted.
In the 20 months since the Oct. 7 massacre, the United States has seen a dramatic surge in antisemitic incidents. According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), antisemitism in the US surged to break “all previous annual records” last year, with 9,354 antisemitic incidents recorded. These outrages included violent assaults, vandalism of Jewish schools and synagogues, harassment on college campuses, and threats against Jewish community centers.
Some Jewish institutions have reported being forced to hire private security or temporarily close their doors due to safety concerns. At universities nationwide, Jewish students and faculty have described feeling unsafe amid anti-Israel and pro-Hamas protests where some demonstrators have used antisemitic slogans or glorified violence.
“American Jews are not bystanders to global terror and domestic extremism. We are deliberate targets,” said William Daroff, CEO of the Conference of Presidents. “The federal government has a mandate to act.”
The delegation plans to advocate for a six-point policy agenda that includes expanding the federal Nonprofit Security Grant Program to $1 billion annually, providing financial support for security personnel at Jewish institutions, boosting FBI resources to combat extremism, and strengthening enforcement of hate crime laws. It will also push for more robust federal aid to local law enforcement and new regulations addressing online hate speech and incitement.
In addition to urging legislation, leaders say they intend to thank lawmakers who have consistently supported Jewish communities and the state of Israel, especially in light of the recent barrage of rockets launched at Israeli cities from Iran and Iran-backed terrorist groups.
“The fight for Jewish security is not just domestic — it is global,” Daroff added. “The stakes have never been higher.”
The mission underscores growing concerns among Jewish Americans who say the dual threats of domestic extremism and rising international hostility toward Israel are converging in dangerous ways — and require a coordinated federal response.
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Columbia University Releases Campus Antisemitism Climate Survey
Pro-Hamas protesters at Columbia University on April 19, 2024. Photo: Melissa Bender via Reuters Connect
Columbia University’s Task Force on Antisemitism has released a “campus climate” survey which found that Jewish students remain exceedingly uncomfortable attending the institution.
According to the survey, 53 percent of Jewish students said they have been subjected to discrimination because of being Jewish, while another 53 percent reported that their friendships are “strained” because of how overwhelmingly anti-Zionist the student culture is. Meanwhile, 29 percent of Jewish students said they have “lost close friends,” and 59 percent, nearly two-thirds, of Jewish students sensed that they would be better off by electing to “conform their political beliefs” to those of their classmates.
Nearly 62 percent of Jewish students reported “a low feeling of acceptance at Columbia on the basis of their religious identity, and 50 percent said that the pro-Hamas encampments which capped off the 2023-2024 academic year had an “impact” on their daily routines.
Jewish students at Columbia were more likely than their peers to report these negative feelings and experiences, followed by Muslim students.
“As a proud alumna who has spent decades championing this institution, I found the results of this survey difficult to read,” acting Columbia University president Claire Shipman said in a statement. “They put the challenges we face in stark relief. The increase in horrific antisemitic violence in the US and across the globe in recent weeks and months serves as a constant, brutal reminder of the dangers of anti-Jewish bigotry, underscores the urgency with which all concerned citizens need to act in addressing it head-on, and the fact that antisemitism can and should be addressed as a unique form of hatred.”
Shipman added that university officials are “aware of the extent of the immense challenges faced by our Jewish students” and have enacted new policies which strengthen the process for reporting bias and prevent unauthorized demonstrations which upend the campus.
“I am confident we can change this painful dynamic. I know this because we share a commitment to protect all members of our community. We owe it to our students — and to each other,” she said.
Columbia University recently settled a lawsuit brought by a Jewish student at the School of Social Work (CSSW) who accused faculty of unrelenting antisemitic bullying and harassment.
According to court documents, Mackenzie “Macky” Forrest was abused by the faculty, one of whom callously denied her accommodations for sabbath observance and then held out the possibility of her attending class virtually during pro-Hamas protests, which according to several reports and first-hand accounts, made the campus unsafe for Jewish students. Her Jewishness and requests for arrangements which would allow her to complete her assignments created what the Lawfare Project described as a “pretext” for targeting Forrest and conspiring to expel her from the program, a plan that involved fabricating stories with the aim of smearing her as insubordinate.
Spurious accusations were allegedly made by one professor, Andre Ivanoff, who was the first to tell Forrest that her sabbath observance was a “problem.” Ivanoff implied that she had failed to meet standards of “behavioral performance” while administrators spread rumors that she had declined to take on key assignments, according to court documents. This snowballed into a threat: Forrest was allegedly told that she could either take an “F” in a field placement course or drop out, the only action that would prevent sullying her transcript with her failing grade.
Forrest left but has now settled the lawsuit she filed to get justice in terms that Columbia University has buried under a confidentiality agreement.
Columbia was one of the most hostile campuses for Jews employed by or enrolled in an institution of higher education. After Hamas’s invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, the university produced several indelible examples of campus antisemitism, including a student who proclaimed that Zionist Jews deserve to be murdered and are lucky he is not doing so himself and administrative officials who, outraged at the notion that Jews organized to resist anti-Zionism, participated in a group chat in which each member took turns sharing antisemitic tropes that described Jews as privileged and grafting.
Amid these incidents, the university struggled to contain the anti-Zionist group Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), which in late January committed an act of infrastructural sabotage by flooding the toilets of the Columbia School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) with concrete. Numerous reports indicate the attack may have been the premeditated result of planning sessions which took place many months ago at an event held by Alpha Delta Phi (ADP) — a literary society, according to the Washington Free Beacon. During the event, the Free Beacon reported, ADP distributed literature dedicated to “aspiring revolutionaries” who wish to commit seditious acts. Additionally, a presentation was given in which complete instructions for the exact kind of attack which struck Columbia were shared with students.
The university is reportedly restructuring itself to comply with conditions for restoring $400 million in federal funding canceled by US Education Secretary Linda McMahon in March to punish the school’s alleged failure to quell “antisemitic violence and harassment.”
In March, the university issued a memo announcing that it acceded to key demands put forth by the Trump administration as prerequisites for releasing the funds — including a review of undergraduate admissions practices that allegedly discriminate against qualified Jewish applicants, the enforcement of an “anti-mask” policy that protesters have violated to avoid being identified by law enforcement, and enhancements to the university’s security protocols that would facilitate the restoration of order when the campus is disturbed by pro-Hamas radicals and other agitators.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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