Israel Threatens to Deport Relatives of 2 Fugitive Militants
In a change of tactics, the Israeli Army today rounded up 21 male relatives of two fugitive Palestinian militants whom it blamed for attacks this week and threatened to deport them. The fugitives' houses were also destroyed.

The deporting of relatives of violent militants — probably to the Gaza Strip but possibly abroad — has been debated by top Israeli commanders for weeks as a way to combat terrorism, which has been reduced but not stopped by the army's reoccupation and curfews on the West Bank. The tactic could face extensive legal wrangles.

The threat of deportation drew immediate protests from Palestinian officials and Israeli human rights organizations.

"I see this as a war crime; I see this as a crime against humanity," said the chief Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat. "It's a very alarming development."

B'Tselem, the Israeli human rights group, issued a statement saying that "punishment of innocent persons will constitute an unerasable moral blight on the State of Israel" and that the policy would violate the Geneva Convention against both collective punishment and deportation.

"One of the most fundamental principles of the rule of law is that one person cannot be punished for the actions of another," the statement said. "A state engaging in such collective punishment, even in response to murderous attacks against its own innocent civilians, loses moral justification for its action."
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/20/international/middleeast/20MIDE.html