Two weeks after the incident, the contentious case of the 19-year-old Israeli soldier caught on camera firing a bullet into the head of an incapacitated Palestinian who had been shot and disarmed after stabbing another soldier in Hebron continues to dominate the headlines in Israel.
The solder faces a charge of manslaughter — down from murder — in the fatal shooting, a video of which was taken by B’Tselem, the Israeli human rights organization. After the Palestinian stabs one soldier, the attacker is shot. He lies prone on the ground but is still alive. Suddenly, a soldier takes aim with his firearm and fires a bullet into the back of the head of the man. He stops moving and blood streams out onto the street.
The March 24 incident sparked a national controversy, with some politicians and others accusing the army of selling the soldier down the river by arresting him and putting him under investigation. In dispute is the motive and the reasoning behind the shooting. The soldier’s defense attorneys said he felt his life was in danger. He claimed he was acting in self-defense and that he thought the man he shot might have had a bomb.
However, an initial assessment of the shooting found that the Palestinian posed “no apparent threat to the soldiers and medics in the area,” according to the IDF. It found that the soldier who shot the man arrived six minutes after the stabbing and that a few more minutes elapsed before the soldier shot the suspect.
Then there were the soldiers, officers and members of the ambulance corps on the scene who did not bat an eyelid to help and were only reprimanded by their superiors for not giving medical assistance to the wounded Palestinian. Is this the normal course of action in these kind of circumstances?
B’Tselem, along with Human Rights Watch and the United Nations, have long accused Israeli soldiers and border police of using excessive force. They have documented many cases where there were suspicions, where there were claims by eyewitnesses or there was video evidence to indicate certain suspicions, but there was never any clear proof like this video clip.
The prolonged preoccupation with the still-unnamed soldier hints at the set of completely different emotions the shooting evokes in the opposing sides of the Israeli political divide, with some viewing the soldier as a hero for his actions and merits a citation, and others seeing the case as a horrifying reminder of the moral price exacted by the Israeli occupation.
The soldier’s comrades told investigators he’d said to them the man deserved to die. As such, the shooting was a grave breach of proper military conduct. It is a huge responsibility when you give a soldier a weapon and give him clear directives what can and cannot be done. If somebody breaches those standards, they have to be held accountable.
For Israelis the incident speaks to a belief that security can only come by imposing ever-harsher order and control over Palestinians. But it is wrong to meet Palestinian aggression by imposing more control and more force. Israeli violence against Palestinians is unjust and must be condemned. Palestinians are deserving of comparable treatment that would be accorded Israelis. They cannot participate in the Israeli political system that ultimately rules them. This leaves Palestinians with few ways to make themselves heard other than by hitting back.
By perpetuating the conflict, the responsible actors bear real responsibility for such abuses. One of those actors is an Israeli society that continues to elect leaders who explicitly promise to maintain the occupation.
The shooting was a war crime. Israeli soldiers are committing field executions against Palestinian civilians. The video needs to shock every person that has a conscience and everyone who has not lost their moral judgment.
