Editing Unlawful combatant (section)

===Other countries===
[[Israel]], since the 2002 "Imprisonment of Illegal Combatants Law", makes theoretical distinctions between lawful and unlawful combatants and the legal status thereof.<ref>Other Countries</ref><ref>{{cite news | title=Israel: Opportunistic Law Condemned|date=March 2002| publisher=Human Rights Watch|url=http://hrw.org/english/docs/2002/03/07/isrlpa3787.htm}}</ref><ref>[http://www.jcpa.org/brief/brief4-5.htm Israel's Commitment to Domestic and International Law in Times of War] by Judge Amnon Straschnov Former IDF Military Advocate General.</ref><ref>[http://www.justice.gov.il/NR/rdonlyres/7E86D098-0463-4F37-A38D-8AEBE770BDE6/0/IncarcerationLawedited140302.doc Incarceration of Unlawful Combatants Law, 5762-2002] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060218001853/http://www.justice.gov.il/NR/rdonlyres/7E86D098-0463-4F37-A38D-8AEBE770BDE6/0/IncarcerationLawedited140302.doc |date=18 February 2006 }} (DOC) "unlawful combatant" means a person who has participated either directly or indirectly in hostile acts against the State of Israel or is a member of a force perpetrating hostile acts against the State of Israel, where the conditions prescribed in Article 4 of the Third Geneva Convention of 12 August 1949 with respect to prisoners-of-war and granting prisoner-of-war status in international humanitarian law, do not apply to him.</ref>

The United Kingdom [[Crown Prosecution Service]] (CPS) makes the distinction. The CPS conducted a "through review of the evidence concerning the deaths of Sergeant Steven Roberts of the 2nd Royal Tank Regiment and Mr Zaher Zaher, an Iraqi national, at Az Zubayr, Iraq on 24 March 2003":<ref name=CPS-2006>{{cite web|url=http://www.cps.gov.uk/news/press_releases/123_06/ |title=CPS decision on Iraq deaths: Press Release |author=Crown Prosecution Service |date=27 April 2006 |website=CPS website |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100926174926/http://cps.gov.uk/news/press_releases/123_06/ |archive-date=26 September 2010}}</ref><ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/sgtroberts31_07_06.pdf British Army Board of Inquiry into death of Sgt Steven Roberts], 31 July 2007, website of the BBC. See paragraph 61 for details of British Rules of Engagement in the [[Iraq War]]</ref>

{{Blockquote|In reviewing the case, the CPS lawyer considered the possible view that, because of his behaviour, Mr Zaher had become an unlawful combatant and therefore under the Rules of Engagement, under which the [British] soldiers were required to operate, they would have been entitled to take offensive action against him. Under the Rules of Engagement and the Geneva Convention, unless a person is positively identified as being a combatant, they should be considered a civilian and treated accordingly.

As the alternative view would be that Mr Zaher was not an unlawful combatant but a civilian, the reviewing lawyer also considered whether the soldiers could rely on self defence. ...|Crown Prosecution Service.<ref name=CPS-2006/>}}