Elor Azariah
An Israeli military court found the Sergeant of the Israel defense forces (IDF) Elora Azariah guilty of the manslaughter of Palestinians. It is reported Bloomberg.
It happened in March of 2016: the Palestinian, Abdul al-Fatah al-Sharif attacked an Israeli soldier in Hebron city and was wounded. When he was on the bridge, bleeding profusely, Azariah raised his gun and shot him in the head. He explained to his commander that the criminal wounded his comrades, therefore, must be killed. According to the panel of three judges, a Sergeant shot and killed al-Sharif not out of fear, as claimed by the defense but out of a desire to finish.
The case of Azariah has split Israeli society: the country’s defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman called on the society to respect the “difficult” decision, but education Minister Naftali Bennett called for an immediate pardon of the convicted person. Near the courthouse was a demonstration under the slogans “Israel does not throw soldiers on the battlefield”.
The verdict in the case of Azariah will be made in a few weeks. The maximum punishment under article “manslaughter” — 20 years in prison. Over the past year, victims of attacks were about 40 Israelis, more than 450 were injured. On the Palestinian side were killed, according to estimates by the media, more than 200 people. They usually killed while attempting to attack Israelis. This outburst of violence called “the intifada of the knives” for use in attacks mainly melee weapons.