UN decries 18-month term for Israeli killer

‘Manslaughter in Israel punishable by up to 20 years’

GENEVA // The UN human rights office said yesterday it was deeply disturbed by the excessively lenient 18- month prison sentence handed down to an Israeli soldier who murdered a badly wounded Palestinian man as he lay on the ground.

Elor Azaria was sentenced on Tuesday for manslaughter in the shooting last March of Abdul Fatah Al Sharif.

United Nations human rights spokeswoman Ravina Sham- dasani said that manslaughter carries a maximum punishment of 20 years under Israeli law.

“This case undermines confidence in the justice system and reinforces the culture of impunity,” she said. Ms Shamdasani said more than 200 Palestinians had been killed by Israel since the most recent wave of killings began in October 2015.

Azaria is the only member of the Israeli security forces to have been brought to trial for such a killing, she said.

While Israel’s top generals pushed for the prosecution of a soldier they say broke the military’s code of ethics, large segments of the public, including politicians on Israel’s nationalist right, sided with Azaria.

Even prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave only lukewarm support to his military. Ms Shamdasani’s comments came as hundreds of Palestinian protesters clashed with Israeli soldiers in Hebron on the anniversary of a 1994 massacre of 29 Palestinians by a far-right illegal Jewish settler.

There were no reports of injuries during the clashes, in which soldiers used ammunition to disperse the crowds.

Illegal Jewish settlers, 500 of them entrenched in the city of about 200,000 Palestinians, hurled stones at the protesters.

Elor Azaria is the only soldier to have been brought to trial for killing a Palestinian, according to a UN spokeswoman