Yajoo! News
McClatchy Newspapers
Checkpoint Jerusalem

Israeli riot control out-of-control? Posted by Dion Nissenbaum
Wed Jul 30, 11:17 AM ET

For years, Palestinian and international activists have been leading weekly (and sometimes daily) protests against ongoing construction of Israel's separation barrier in the West Bank.

The demonstration routinely turns violent.

Last nght, it turned deadly.

As dusk fell on the latest protest, an Israeli soldier shot and killed a 10-year-old Palestinian boy. Witnesses said the soldier was more than 100 yards away when he opened fire and killed the boy.

As Ahmed Moussa was buried today, Israeli authorities confirmed that the boy was killed by an Israeli soldier and vowed to start sending soldiers trained in riot control to deal with the demonstrations.

That begs the question: Why wasn't Israel sending soldiers trained in riot control before the boy was killed?

Even before the deadly incident, there was rising concern about reckless Israeli soldiers sent to handle the demonstrations.

In March, activists videotaped an Israeli soldier opening fire on a demonstrator standing harmlessly several yards away. (See below.)

The demonstrator was taken to a nearby hospital where a rubber-coated metal bullet was taken out of his leg. The Israeli military opened an investigation, but the incident garnered relatively little international attention.

Then, earlier this month, Palestinians videotaped another Israeli soldier opening fire on a Palestinian demonstrator with a rubber-coated metal bullet as he stood, bound and blindfolded, surrounded by Israeli troops, about three feet away. (See below.)

The second incident created more concern and outrage than the first.

After being taken in for questioning, the soldier who fired the shot said his commander ordered him to shoot. This week, the commander-in-question, who denied issuing any such order, reportedly failed a lie detector test.

As this investigation was unfolding, Israeli soldiers shot-and-killed 10-year-old Ahmed Moussa on Tuesday night.

Two questionable videotaped shootings and a child shot dead - all in the space of about four months - certainly raises new questions about Israel's response to the demonstrations.

One part of the answer might be found in two recent reports from Israeli human rights groups.

The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel issued a report in June that documented widespread abuse of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli custody and what it called "almost absolute indifference" among government officials to the problem.

Then, Yesh Din issued a separate report in which it found that Israeli soldiers are rarely punished for questionable attacks of Palestinians.

"The figures on the low number of investigations and the minute number of indictments filed reveal that the army is shirking its duty to protect the civilian Palestinian population from offenses committed by its soldiers," Yesh Din legal advisor Michael Sfard said in a statement. "The minute number of indictments launched following reports by commanders to military police brings to light the army's conspiracy of silence over offenses against Palestinians."