Israel's kidnapping and hostage taking policy

Israeli forces have carried out many kidnapping operations across the world, most recently in Syria and Lebanon. These actions raise legal questions, especially when carried out across border.

A kidnapping operation carried out by the Israeli commando force against a Lebanese citizen named Imad Amhaz from the Batroun region in the north of the country, on the pretext that he is a member of Hezbollah and a naval officer in the Lebanese army.

While Israel claimed that the kidnapped person is a Hezbollah military official and a naval officer in the Lebanese army, Hezbollah has not yet confirmed or denied the allegations. However, Lebanon's government has officially denied the validity of Israel's allegations, stressing that the kidnapped person is a civilian sea captain.

On Saturday, Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati asked his Foreign Minister Abdullah Bou Habib to file a complaint to the Security Council regarding Israel's kidnapping of a Lebanese citizen.

A statement from Mikati's office said that the Prime Minister followed up on the kidnapping of Lebanese citizen Imad Amhaz in the Batroun area, and stressed the need to expedite the investigations, and made a call to Army Commander General Joseph Aoun, and was informed by him of the ongoing investigations into the circumstances of the case.

Previously, Israel carried out kidnappings in Syrian as well. Israeli army spokesman Avichay Adraee acknowledged that through preemptive operational activity inside Syrian territory in recent months, the forces of the "Egoz" unit, along with members of Unit 504 and under intelligence guidance, arrested "an element of a terrorist network affiliated with Iran on the Syrian front."

Adraee added that the so-called Ali Suleiman al-Asi, a Syrian citizen residing in southern Syria, was recruited by Iran and was working to collect intelligence information about the Israeli army in the border area.

Hostage taking and the law

The International Convention against the Taking of Hostages (ikhtitaf) defines the offence as the seizure or detention of a person (the hostage), combined with threatening to kill, to injure or to continue to detain the hostage, in order to compel a third party to do or to abstain from doing any act as an explicit or implicit condition for the release of the hostage. The Elements of Crimes for the International Criminal Court uses the same definition but adds that the required behavior of the third party could be a condition not only for the release of the hostage but also for the safety of the hostage. It is the specific intent that characterizes hostage-taking and distinguishes it from the deprivation of someone’s liberty as an administrative or judicial measure.

Although the prohibition of hostage-taking is specified in the Fourth Geneva Convention and is typically associated with the holding of civilians as hostages, there is no indication that the offence is limited to taking civilians hostage. Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, the Statute of the International Criminal Court and the International Convention against the Taking of Hostages do not limit the offence to the taking of civilians, but apply it to the taking of any person. Indeed, in the Elements of Crimes for the International Criminal Court, the definition applies to the taking of any person protected by the Geneva Conventions.