CBNNews.com - JERUSALEM, Israel - Israelis were appalled by a Spanish judge's decision to investigate seven Israelis for alleged "war crimes" in the 2002 targeted killing of senior Hamas terrorist Salah Shehadeh.

Spanish officials said the investigation had been pending for several years, but many here believe the timing has to do with Israel's recent three-week offensive in the Gaza Strip.

"Someone who calls the assassination of a terrorist a crime against humanity lives in an upside-down world," Defense Minister Ehud Barak said.

"All of the senior defense officials, from the past and the present, acted correctly in the name of the State of Israel and out of a commitment to defend Israeli citizens," he said.

Barak said the true face of Hamas was revealed during the IDF's (Israel Defense Forces) Operation Cast Lead in Gaza, referring to the terror group's use of human shields, booby-trapped homes and schools, and mosques serving as militia headquarters and weapons warehouses.

Among those named in the Spanish investigation are National Infrastructures Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, who was defense minister at the time; Lt.-General (ret.) Moshe Ya'alon, who served as IDF chief of staff then; and Public Security Minister Avi Dichter, who was head of the Shin Bet (General Security Agency) when Shehadeh was killed.

"The decision of the Spanish court is delusional, ridiculous, and more than that, outrageous," Ben-Eliezer told Israel's Channel 2 news.

"They are using the courts of the free world to fight those who fight terror," he said.

"I am not sorry about the decision I made to assassinate him when I was defense minister. Shehadeh was an arch-murderer. If we hadn't done this, hundreds of others would have died," Ben-Eliezer said.

Outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called the probe "typical moral acrobats" meant "to turn the attacker into the attacked and vice versa."

Source: The Jerusalem Post