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Elor Azaria, Israeli Soldier Who Killed Wounded Assailant, Gets 18 Months in Prison Elor Azaria, Israeli Soldier Who Killed Wounded Assailant, Gets 18 Months in Prison
(about 7 hours later)
JERUSALEM — An Israeli soldier who shot an incapacitated Palestinian attacker in the head was sentenced to 18 months in prison on Tuesday, in a case that has divided Israelis and prompted calls for his pardon. JERUSALEM — The judge spoke plainly: Elor Azaria, a young Israeli medic documented on video shooting an immobilized Palestinian attacker in the head, had acted as “both judge and executioner.”
Col. Maya Heller, a judge speaking on behalf of a military panel in Tel Aviv, reminded the defendant, Sgt. Elor Azaria, that his conviction for manslaughter was “grave” and that he could have faced up to 20 years in prison. For this, a military judicial panel sentenced Sergeant Azaria, now 20, on Tuesday to 18 months in prison, a year suspended sentence and a demotion in rank for manslaughter.
“The acts of the defendant are serious,” the judge said, according to a pool report from Israel Radio. “The accused damaged the purity of arms which is so holy” in the Israel military, she added. “There is a need to safeguard humanity.” All sides erupted in anger, echoing the larger divisions here, Palestinian against Israeli and Israelis among themselves. How, supporters asked, could a soldier be convicted of an action in combat? Some called the sentence a judicial attack on the military, Israel’s most revered institution, while others asked if, after 50 years of occupation and war, Israeli hearts had grown callous.
Sergeant Azaria, now 20, was convicted in January by a panel of military judges for the death of Abed al-Fatah al-Sharif in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron in March. Widely shared video showed the sergeant shooting Mr. Sharif, who was lying still on his back, in the head. Mr. Sharif and another Palestinian had stabbed and wounded an Israeli soldier at a checkpoint. Israeli soldiers had killed the other man and wounded Mr. Sharif. The father of the dead Palestinian, Abdel Fattah al-Sharif, one of two men shot after carrying out a stabbing attack at an Israeli checkpoint in Hebron in March, called it a “show trial” that exposed one standard of justice for Israelis and another for Palestinians.
The case unfolded against a backdrop of random attacks by Palestinians using guns, knives and vehicles that had killed at least 28 Israelis in a little over four months. The decision to prosecute Sergeant Azaria rapidly emerged as a flash point in the debate over the Israeli military and its role as the nation’s conscience and most trusted institution. “If someone is arrested for throwing a rock, they get a two-year sentence,” the father, Yusri al-Sharif, said, according to the news site Ynet. “In this case, a soldier murdered and got a year and a half.”
Conservatives in Israel expressed outrage, with Naftali Bennett, the education minister, accusing the generals of being “quick to pounce on the soldier,” while others began a bitter campaign against the defense minister, Moshe Yaalon. Many Israelis said Sergeant Azaria should not have been punished for putting his life on the line in the military; service is required for most young Israelis and is held in high esteem in the country. “My son is not an animal,” he said.
Palestinians and Israeli rights advocates said the events showed a callousness to Palestinian life. An Israeli legal and human rights advocacy group that opposes Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, Yesh Din, has said that before the case involving Sergeant Azaria, only one Israeli soldier had been charged and convicted of homicide after more than 260 investigations into Palestinian fatalities since the beginning of the second Palestinian uprising in 2000. But Israeli leaders, still shocked that an Israeli soldier was convicted in January in a killing in a military operation, again called for Sergeant Azaria’s pardon. The refrain, in this nation where most Israelis serve in the military, is that it could have been anyone’s son, acting in a conflict that is far older than he is and that shows no sign of being resolved.
Traditionally, generals have preached restraint in the face of Palestinian violence and adherence to open-fire regulations, which dictate that soldiers should shoot only to neutralize a threat. But under the pressure of continued violence last winter, that consensus had eroded. “This is a sad day, a harsh sentence,” said Miri Regev, the minister of culture and sport and a former brigadier general. “I ask the chief of staff once again to pardon warrior Elor Azaria.”
The Palestinian attacks put “a lot of tension on the military leadership and the soldiers who are put in situations where they are supposed to fight terror, protect themselves and comply” with the military’s values, Yohanan Plesner, the president of the Israel Democracy Institute, said in an interview at the time. “There is a need to remember that even a soldier who made a mistake is our soldier,” said Yoav Galant, the construction minister and a former army commander.
During the trial, Sergeant Azaria’s commander testified that he had asked him who had authorized him to shoot the man in the head. The commander said that the sergeant had replied, “The terrorist was alive, and he has to die.” Prosecutors had asked for a prison term of three to five years. Judge Maya Heller said that the manslaughter conviction was “grave” and that Sergeant Azaria could have faced up to 20 years in prison. She noted that the defendant had a clean record but also that he had not expressed any remorse for the killing.
Prosecutors had asked for a prison sentence of three to five years. In addition to the 18 months, the panel sentenced Sergeant Azaria to a one-year suspended sentence. Judge Heller noted that the defendant had a clean record but also that he had not expressed any remorse for the killing. She said he “took it upon himself to be both judge and executioner.” “The acts of the defendant are serious,” the judge said, according to a pool report from Israel Radio. “The accused damaged the purity of arms which is so holy” in the Israeli military. “There is a need to safeguard humanity.”
Politicians, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have called for Sergeant Azaria to be pardoned, something that can be granted only by the chief of staff or by the president. Sergeant Azaria’s lawyers have said they would appeal any sentence. The case unfolded against a backdrop of random attacks by Palestinians using guns, knives and vehicles that killed at least 28 Israelis in just over four months. The decision to prosecute Sergeant Azaria emerged as a flash point in the debate over the Israeli military and its role as the nation’s conscience and protector.
Reaction on Tuesday followed the divisions of the case. The video showing Sergeant Azaria shoot Mr. Sharif, unarmed, unmoving and lying on his back, ignited outrage on social media.
“This is a sad day, a harsh sentence,” said Miri Regev, minister of culture and sport and a former brigadier general. “I ask the chief of staff once again to pardon warrior Elor Azaria.” On Tuesday, Ayman Odeh, an Arab member of Israel’s Parliament, speculated that the case resonated so widely because “there are many, many other similar cases” but that this one was captured on video. He said the problem, generally, is with the occupation, not a specific soldier.
Samir al-Sharif, who identified himself as a family member of the slain man, said on Israel Radio: “We are tired of this. A person killed? What is a year and a half? Someone who kills someone by mistake on the road would be sentenced to a year and a half. How is it that a soldier who has a gun and kills a live person, he knew he was alive?” “When someone murders like that and gets a year and a half jail, and seconds after ministers call for a pardon, I can’t speak about rule of law,” he said in an interview in New York.
Sari Bashi, director for Human Rights Watch in Israel and the Palestinian territories, said in a statement that “sending Elor Azaria to prison for his crime sends an important message about reining in excessive use of force.” During the trial, a soldier testified that before the shooting Sergeant Azaria had said: “How is it that my friend was stabbed and a terrorist is still alive?”
“But senior Israeli officials should also repudiate the shoot-to-kill rhetoric that too many of them have promoted, even when there is no imminent threat of death,” Ms. Bashi added. “Pardoning Azaria or reducing his punishment would only encourage impunity for unlawfully taking the life of another person.” His commander testified that he had asked him who had authorized him to shoot the man in the head. The commander said the sergeant had replied, “The terrorist was alive, and he has to die.”
After the conviction in January, politicians, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, immediately called for Sergeant Azaria to be pardoned. That can be granted only by the chief of staff or the president. Sergeant Azaria’s lawyers said they would appeal the sentence.
In the sentencing, the judges noted that this was Sergeant Azaria’s first incident and that he had treated the wounded soldier.
“There is also no ignoring that during the shooting the scene was active, and the operational incident had not fully ended,” the judges wrote. “There were also troops at the scene, as well as civilian rescue forces and civilians. There had been calls in the area about the danger the terrorist posed.”
An Israeli legal and human rights group that opposes Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, Yesh Din, has said that before this case, only one Israeli soldier had been charged and convicted of homicide after more than 260 investigations into Palestinian fatalities since the beginning of the second Palestinian uprising in 2000.
Traditionally, Israel’s generals have preached restraint in the face of Palestinian violence and adherence to regulations in which soldiers should shoot only to neutralize a threat. But under the pressure of continued violence last winter and into spring, that consensus had eroded.
The Palestinian attacks put “a lot of tension on the military leadership and the soldiers who are put in situations where they are supposed to fight terror, protect themselves and comply” with the military’s values, said Yohanan Plesner, the president of the Israel Democracy Institute, in an interview at the time.