Jay GW

An Israeli military court has ordered the release of the army commander responsible for shooting to death a young Palestinian girl at point-blank range in the Gaza Strip last year, according to the Israeli press.

Thirteen-year-old Iman al-Hams's body was found riddled with over 17 bullets near an army post in the southern Gaza strip refugee camp of Rafah last October.

The accused commander, identified only as Captain R, was released on Sunday after being confined to an army base for two months. The Israeli army had initially said that Iman was shot because soldiers feared she was carrying a bomb in her book bag as she approached an occupation watchtower in a security zone that overlooks the refugee camp.

But a three-way radio exchange between the officers that was broadcast on Israeli television in November made clear that the soldiers knew al-Hams was a young girl that posed no threat.

The soldiers in the recording immediately identified al-Hams as a girl of "about 10" that was "scared to death". She was shot in the legs nonetheless.

Captain R then shot the wounded girl twice in the head, and "confirmed the kill" by emptying his magazine into her limp body.

He then said he would have killed her "even if she was three-years-old".

The tape also revealed that the soldiers knew Iman was headed eastwards, away from the army post and back into the refugee camp, when she was shot.

Captain R faced only minor charges such as illegal use of his weapons and conduct unbecoming of an officer. Iman's outraged parents have said they want him prosecuted for murder.

The girl was one of 172 children killed in Gaza in 2004 - and one of 644 killed since the start of al-Aqsa intifada in September 2000, accounting for about 20% of Palestinian deaths. But only one Israeli soldier has been found guilty of manslaughter, although some 1700 unarmed Palestinians have been killed since the start of the intifada, according to the Israeli human rights group B'tselem.

That soldier received a punishment of four months in jail and a reduction in rank.

The Israeli rights group accuses the Israeli military of granting impunity to occupation soldiers who kill Palestinian civilians by issuing what they call "offensive sentences".

The Israeli army, they say, has an "intolerable disregard for Palestinian life, as reflected in the open-fire regulations which encourage a trigger-happy attitude among soldiers, and its policy to cover up and refrain from investigating the killing of civilians".

Of the thousands of cases of dead Palestinians, only 90 were investigated by the military police, 29 of which were filed as indictments, resulting in just one conviction.

The group says that new open-fire regulations established at the start of the intifada permit soldiers to shoot at Palestinians in non-combat, non life-threatening situations, as they did Iman.

http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/am/p...le_10381.shtml

Since the beginning of the al-Aqsa intifada, the IDF has opened only 90 Military Police investigations into Palestinians killed and injured, although soldiers have killed at least 1,694 Palestinians who did not take part in hostilities, including 536 minors. These investigations led to the filing of only 29 indictments.

Only one soldier has been convicted of causing the death of a Palestinian. These statistics are not accidental. Rather, they are a result of the IDF’s intolerable disregard for Palestinian life, as reflected in the open-fire regulations which encourage a trigger-happy attitude among soldiers, and its policy to cover up and refrain from investigating the killing of civilians.

http://www.btselem.org/English/index.asp

It strikes me as a little odd that 1700 Palestinians have been killed, no one, but one soldier, in the Israeli army has ever been investigated and found guilty of using excessive force. About 15 Palestinian children, under 18 year olds, are killed each month.

That's a rate of 1 Israeli army investigation and conviction per 1700 Palestinian deaths.

What kind of policy is this?

BolshyFaker

A policy of war. I don't want to defend the IDF - if their record is as bad as your OP suggests during the current uprising then that certainly is a failure of justice within the military structure.

I would point out however that whilst Israel may well not be fulfilling its procedures on prosecuting its soldiers, very few countries do. As was pointed out recently in anohter thread, French special forces that bombed the Rainbow Warrior had stupidly light sentences for an act of terrorism, again, the Abu Ghraib abuses have received absurdly insultingly short sentences (isn't torture a crime against humanity? I forget), and doubtless British squaddies accused of abusing Iraqis will get off with a dishonourable discharge.


So yeah, I'm not defending the failure to investigate or sufficiently prosecute which you suggest is occurring here, but remember everyone does it, not just Israel.

Loren Pechtel

Identifying her as a girl who was scared to death does not mean there's no threat. What if she were being forced to do something she knew was dangerous?

Graeme

At some point you have to listen to common sense. She was moving AWAY from them.

Occam's razor.

comradeBillyboy

thats right loren, even if she was not personally a terrorist she was an arab who annoyed someone in the idf and therefore deserved to die. one group is god's chosen people and the other group are just animals with no rights under israeli law. since any arab could be a terrorist, the idf is always justified in killing any arab for any reason whatever.

Loren Pechtel

Something dangerous could include transporting a bomb.

Kamandi

Just to begin with, the demographics are nutty: from the totals killed, you need to subtract hundreds of suicide bombers, armed militants, Palestinians killed by other Palestinians as "collaborators," Palestinians killed by explosions at bomb factories, etc.

They're presenting these totals as if they were all noncombatants, which is bogus. And numerous Israeli soldiers have punished for their actions in the West Bank, although perhaps not as harshly as they should have been.

When you do the actual math, as Don Radlauer did in ICT's analysis An Engineered Tragedy, you'll reach the conclusion that roughly equal numbers of noncombatants have been killed on both sides.

And even that's only because the IDF foiled most of the terror attacks on Israel. If they hadn't, the numbers of Israeli noncombatants killed would be have been tripled or more.