Arrest of soldier filmed executing Palestinian was just public relation

Israelis rally outside an Israeli military court in Kiryat Malakhi in support of an Israeli soldier shown on video shooting an incapacitated Palestinian in the head, 29 March.-Oren ZivActiveStills

Settlers look on as Israeli forces evacuate the body of Abd al-Fattah al-Sharif in the West Bank city of Hebron on 24 March.Wisam HashlamounAPA images

Maureen Clare Murphy-1 April 2016

An Israeli soldier shown on video executing an incapacitated Palestinian last week was arrested only “to avoid embarrassment in front of the world,” according to the human rights group Al-Haq.

The group’s investigation sheds new light on the incident in which two Palestinian youths were slain, and comes as the arrested soldier, Elor Azarya, faces manslaughter charges, rather than the murder charges previously announced by military prosecutors. He may be released within days.

Al-Haq, based in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, asserts that both the slaying of Abd al-Fattah al-Sharif, shown on video, and that of Ramzi al-Qasrawi, which was not recorded, constitute deliberate killings and are thus war crimes.

The group adds that statements made by Israeli leaders – including former foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman, who endorsed the videotaped killing and asserted that “the soldier carried out orders” – indicate that soldiers have been given orders to kill rather than neutralize Palestinians who pose a threat.

“The occupation authorities’ detention of the accused soldier is a cover-up of the crime, to show the occupier state as law abiding and holds violators accountable,” Al-Haq’s Arabic-language report states.

“The arrest of one soldier and not the other suggests that what the other soldier had done was not a crime because it was not captured on camera,” the group adds.

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