IDF Soldiers hunted down terrorist PA cops to avenge their comrades

Israeli special forces killed 15 Palestinians, including police, in 2002 to avenge comrades slain in a West Bank ambush. Two former commandos, their names withheld, told Maariv that after Palestinian militants killed six Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint near Ramallah in February 2002, they were told to attack Palestinian-run checkpoints elsewhere in the West Bank.

They had been "instructed...to change the mode of operation and adjust it to the harsh reality on the ground - Hunting down all those involved in terror activities."

"'We are going to liquidate Palestinian policemen at a checkpoint in revenge for our six soldiers that they killed'," one ex-commando, quoted his commander as saying. He added that "the feeling was that this would be 'an eye for an eye."'

The other interviewee described taking part in a raid on a group of Palestinian policemen drinking coffee at a checkpoint near where the Israeli soldiers had been ambushed.

He said that after the first volley felled the Palestinians, he delivered a coup-de-grace to one of them, a man in his 50s.

"It was the first time I had killed and the first time I saw someone die. It was simply a pleasurable day," the former commando said.