Israelis are divided on soldier’s sentence
Sergeant who shot injured attacker gets 18 months in prison
JERUSALEM — An Israeli soldier who shot an incapacitated Palestinian attacker in the head was sentenced to 18 months in prison Tuesday, in a case that has divided Israelis and prompted calls for his pardon.
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.
“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.”
Azaria, now 20, was convicted in January by a panel of military judges for the death of Abdel al-Fatah al-Sharif in Hebron in March. Widely shared video showed the sergeant shooting al-Sharif, who was lying still on his back, in the head. Al-Sharif and another Palestinian had stabbed and wounded an Israeli soldier at a checkpoint. Israeli soldiers killed the other man and wounded al-Sharif.
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 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.
Conservatives in Israel expressed outrage, with Naftali Bennett, the education minister, accusing the generals of being “quick to pounce on the soldier,” while others launched a bitter campaign against the defense minister, Moshe Yaalon. Many Israelis said 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.
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 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.
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.
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, president of the Israel Democracy Institute, in an interview at the time.
During the trial, 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 sentence of three to five years. In addition to the 18 months, the panel sentenced Azaria to a one-year suspended sentence. 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.”
Politicians, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have called for Azaria to be pardoned, something that can be granted only by the chief of staff or by the president.
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? How is it that a soldier who has a gun and kills a live person, he knew he was alive?”