The impact of the footage was amplified by the timing of its release. It comes as Palestinians were mourning the deaths of 29 people over the last two weeks, shot by Israeli forces during renewed protests along the fence that divides Israel and Gaza. Israel was already facing international scrutiny and accusations of disproportionate use of force over these recent killings.
The military said the conduct of the censured soldiers was not what was expected of its forces, adding that they would be dealt with by their commanders. The findings of its initial inquiry came a day after video of the shooting surfaced on Israeli social networks and quickly made its way to prime-time news broadcasts on Israeli television.
The Gazans say they are exercising their legitimate right to demonstrate against Israel’s 11-year blockade of the isolated and impoverished coastal enclave. Israel says it is acting to protect its military infrastructure, its border and its citizens from any breach and to prevent Hamas, the Islamic militant group that controls Gaza, from using the protests as a cover to carry out armed attacks.
The December footage prompted some debate in Israel over the military’s open-fire regulations, the reaction of the exuberant soldiers and the military’s preliminary response. But opinion roughly divided along predictable lines, with some who oppose Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians expressing shock and others who are more supportive defending the shooting and dismissing the soldiers’ cheers as an almost natural release of tension.
Ayman Odeh, a leading Arab legislator in the Israeli parliament, denounced the video, saying it “horrifies the soul.” The shooter should be prosecuted, he said, but added, “The commander who gave the order to shoot an unarmed protester is the real danger.”
Avigdor Lieberman, Israel’s hard-line defense minister, said, “The sniper deserves a commendation while the one filming deserves condemnation.” He added that it was “understandable” that soldiers at the front sometimes had to let off steam.
Fawzi Barhoum, a Hamas spokesman in Gaza, insisted that the man who was shot had been killed, without identifying him.
“The Israeli minister of war praised the Israeli sniper who killed a defenseless Palestinian protester on the Gaza border,” Mr. Barhoum said, referring to Mr. Lieberman and accusing him of “legitimizing murder.”
Health officials in Gaza said they had no information about the man shot in the video and that his identity was unknown to them.
Mr. Lieberman also said that Yasser Murtaja, a photographer in Gaza who was killed by Israeli sniper fire as he covered the latest protest, on Friday, was a member of Hamas’s military wing and used his camera drone to gather information about Israel’s deployment along the border. Mr. Murtaja, 30, wore a protective vest marked “Press.”
Mr. Lieberman and other Israeli officials offered no evidence to support the assertion.
Mr. Murtaja’s brother, Mutasem, accused Mr. Lieberman of lying, telling The Associated Press: “Yasser was filming the protests with simple cameras to show they are peaceful.”
Salama Marouf, head of the government media office in the Hamas-run Ministry of Information in Gaza, said Mr. Lieberman’s remarks about Mr. Murtaja only proved that Israel had “sentenced him to death, then tries to promote justifications and pretexts it thinks will exempt it from responsibility for the crimes it has committed.”
Source : Nytimes
