Days of Palestine, Jerusalem -An Israeli soldier was cleared on Sunday of charges in the intended murder of a 17-year-old Palestinian child in West Bank last year.
The Israeli occupation soldier Yisrael Shomer, with the rank of colonel, was cleared of all charges in the shooting of the Palestinian boy.
On July 3, 2015, the Palestinian boy Mohamed al-Kasbeh, 17, throw a stone at the vehicle of the Israeli soldier while wandering in the middle of the city of Qalqilia, which is under the Palestinian Authority control.
Watching the incident caught by a CCTV camera, the boy threw a stone at the vehicle and fled away. It caused nothing to the vehicle and posed no danger on the soldier’s life.
Immediately, the soldier and his friend took off their vehicle and took the position of snipers, aiming their automatic guns at the boy and shot him.
The Israeli soldier claimed that the stone smashed the windshield of his vehicle to justify the murder of the Palestinian boy.
After calls to question the soldier, the Israeli military police opened an investigation into the incident to determine if Shomer had acted appropriately in the situation.
In a statement, the Israeli occupation army said that Shomer had not intended to kill al-Kasbeh, and meant only to hit him in the legs in order to stop him, something that is permitted under army protocol.
The Israeli army chief prosecutor’s office found that Shomer had acted in accordance with the army’s rules of engagement, though it did fault the colonel for a “professional error in the way he discharged his weapon.”
“The IDF chief prosecutor found that the weapons discharge, under the framework of the arrest protocol, was justified from the circumstances of the incident,” the army said in a statement.
Shomer missed the suspect’s legs and hit him instead in the back because he “fired his weapon while in motion, and not in a static position,” the army said.
In light of that evidence, the prosecutor determined that the colonel’s actions were not criminal and did not merit full legal proceedings, according to the army’s statement.
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