Two Israeli soldiers were charged in a military court yesterday with forcing a 10-year-old Palestinian boy in the Gaza Strip to handle objects they suspected of being rigged to explode.
The soldiers were indicted for “ordering the boy to open cases that they thought were explosives”, Major Dorit Toval, the prosecutor, said. The alleged crime took place during Operation Cast Lead, the Israeli military onslaught waged more than a year ago with the aim of halting Hamas rocket fire at southern Israel. A gag order was placed barring publication of the names of the soldiers.
An army spokesman said the incident took place while troops conducted sweeps of a building in Gaza City’s Tal al-Hawa neighbourhood. No date was given for the incident. The soldiers were charged with exceeding their authority and behaviour unbecoming a soldier.
“There is no need to mention that this is a transgression that has no place within the ranks of the military,” Ms Toval added, in remarks broadcast on the state-run Voice of Israel radio. “There are clear rules also in regard to the waging of combat. In operational situations, soldiers must safeguard [these rules] during every campaign.”
Colonel Ilan Katz, the lawyer defending the two soldiers, termed the charges “hallucinatory and contrived”. “It would have been better if this [indictment] had not been submitted,” he added. Col Katz warned that a conviction of the soldiers could deter young people from serving in combat units in the future.
But Yehuda Shaul, an activist in the dissident soldiers’ group Breaking the Silence, which gathers testimonies from soldiers, said, “The use of human shields in Operation Cast Lead was not so exceptional. By prosecuting two low-ranking soldiers, the military is trying to shift the discussion away from the big policies that came from high up in Cast Lead and which were wrong: permissive rules of engagement or mass destruction of property that had nothing to do with protecting our troops,” Mr Shaul added. …Read More?
