Israeli Court Convicts Soldier for Killing Downed Terrorist

The only difference in the Azaria case is that it was caught on film and attracted the attention of the worldwide media. At the same time, many Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu have said they would support a pardon of Azaria.

On his official Facebook page, on Wednesday Netanyahu wrote: “This is a hard and painful day …” He added, “The soldiers of the IDF are our sons and daughters, and they need to remain above dispute”.

In a statement released Wednesday evening, Netanyahu said IDF soldiers must “remain above all conflict” (including, apparently, the one they are now fighting), and therefore Azaria should be pardoned for his crime.

Israeli defence minister Avigdor Lieberman said he agreed with the “difficult verdict”. A survey conducted by Tel Aviv University and the Israel Democracy Institute in August 2016 recorded that that 65% of the public supported Azaria’s self-defence claim.

Zionist Union MK Shelly Yachimovich, a former head of the Labour party, praised the court ruling, but said the entire trial was a symptom of the deep division within Israeli society.

“The army must be kept out of political debates”, he said.

Azaria could still be pardoned by Israel’s largely ceremonial president, Reuven Rivlin. Eleven minutes later, Azaria shot the motionless Al-Sharif in the head. An opinion poll in May found that a majority of Israelis thought Azaria should be free and never put on trial. “That is why in the future the pardon will be accepted”.

But the court found that the soldier provided a non-credible version of events and that it was his shooting that killed Palestinian man Abed al Fatah a-Sharif as he lay defenceless on the ground. “A simple counting shows that more than half of the resolution’s operative paragraphs are critical of Israel; none are adverse to Palestinians”.

A spokesman for the Palestinian government, Yousef al-Mahmoud, said: “The conviction of the soldier who executed al-Sharif happened because the crime was documented on video and was transmitted on TV for the whole world to see”.

“The United Nations disproportionately targets Israel for criticism, condemning the Jewish state more past year than it did infamous violators of human rights and global law, such as Syria, Iran, North Korea, Russia, and South Sudan – combined”, he said. The army provided Heller and the other two serving judges in the case special security detail in response to the online threats.

In a memorandum sent to Israeli authorities in September, Amnesty International highlighted at least 20 cases of what the group called “unlawful killings of Palestinians by Israeli forces”.

The statement underlined that there have been more than 150 instances since October 2015 in which security forces fatally shot Palestinian adults and children suspected of trying to stab, run over, or shoot Zionists in the occupied territories. Mr Azaria faces up to 20 years in prison.

Commenting after Azaria’s conviction for manslaughter, the military prosecutor Nadav Weisman reiterated this point, saying the verdict was “important, clear, decisive and speaks for itself”.

Human Rights Watch said on Monday that video footage or witness accounts raised serious questions about numerous more than 150 instances in which Israeli forces have fatally shot Palestinians during attacks or attempted attacks on Israelis. Medical assistance is given to the injured Israeli soldier in the video of the incident.