“An Israeli army officer who fired the entire magazine of his automatic rifle into a 13-year-old Palestinian girl and then said he would have done the same even if she had been three years old was acquitted on all charges by a military court yesterday.”
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After reading the article, it is as bad as it sounds. The autopsy leaves little to the imagination:
Capt R claimed that he had not fired the shots at the girl but near her. However, Dr Mohammed al-Hams, who inspected the child’s body at Rafah hospital, counted numerous wounds. “She has at least 17 bullets in several parts of the body, all along the chest, hands, arms, legs,” he told the Guardian shortly afterwards. “The bullets were large and shot from a close distance. The most serious injuries were to her head. She had three bullets in the head. One bullet was shot from the right side of the face beside the ear. It had a big impact on the whole face.”
The girl wandered into a secured area with a bookbag, but later dropped the bookbag and ran away trying to hide behind an embankment. Her bag was hit by several shots, tending to confirm that it didn’t contain an explosive device. After running to the embankment, away from the army post, she was shot by IDF soldiers. The Commander, referred to as “Captain R,” then approached the girl’s body to “confirm the kill,” and emptied his assault rifle into her body. It appears that no incendiary device or bomb was ever discovered.
I can think of few ways for the Israeli government to ensure more frequent threats to their security in the future than to execute border security in this manner. These are the sort of incidents that radicalize the Palestinian population. Imagine the outrage that the Palestinian community must feel over this incident. Stories like this are an excellent recruiting tool for Hamas and various other groups whose goal is the destruction of Israel.
I recognize that IDF soldiers are in a precarious position in situations like this. A moment’s hesitation could mean the difference between staying alive and ending up in a body bag. But here, it appears that this girl’s death was completely unnecessary under any reasonably likely version of the facts. Emptying assault rifles into 13-year old girls, and then proudly proclaiming that you’d do the same to a 3-year old, is quite possibly the worst thing I think that an IDF soldier could say, particularly in a world where Israel has enemies who will utilize this event to mobilize even more disaffected & outraged individuals against Israel. Anybody who is truly pro-Israel should oppose this sort of ruthless security policy. It only endangers the lives of the very citizens it is meant to protect.
(via letterstomycountry)
The entire IDF is unnecessary. The occupation of Palestine by Europeans and Americans is unnecessary.
(via treatquestion)
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