Ronen Bergman, Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel’s Targeted Assassinations

Targeted killing is a term used for premeditated extrajudicial assassination by a state organization, usually by its covert intelligence and special forces units. The targets are enemy operatives (e.g. managers of terrorist operations) who are perceived as posing an imminent security threat due to their involvement in murderous activities that endanger the state. An important consideration for opting for targeted killing is that the capture of the targeted persons for arrest is made impossible by their protected presence in hostile territory. Over the years, due to the protracted nature of conventional military and terrorist threats by some of its Middle Eastern adversaries against Israel, such as Iran, Syria, the Lebanese Hezballah, and the Palestinian Fatah and Hamas groups, the Jewish State has developed one the world’s top covert special operations capabilities to target selected adversaries for assassination worldwide.