Israel gags news on extra-judicial killings

An Israeli journalist remains under house arrest and another lives abroad, after they broke news on Israeli undercover units carrying out assassinations or "targeted killings" of non-combatant Palestinian political opponents. Anat Kam, 23, who used to work for the Israeli news site 'Walla', was arrested last December for allegedly copying secret Israeli Defense Force documents during her compulsory military service. These documents outlined how Israeli assassination squads would plan the killing of Palestinian political leaders and fighters months beforehand and then pass their deaths off as "mishaps" during "failed" attempts to arrest them. Uri Blau, a reporter from the daily 'Haaretz', then wrote a piece on the copied documents and is refusing to return to Israel from Britain fearing that Israel's domestic intelligence agency, the Shin Bet, will arrest him if he does. Due to a military gag order the news has remained suppressed even as Israeli journalists fight the suppression order in court. The controversy has highlighted Israel's extra-judicial killings which violate international law and have caused death and injury to thousands of Palestinian civilian bystanders despite the country having no death penalty.