Israeli commander accused of shooting injured girl

ISRAEL’S top military prosecutor has opened an investigation into a platoon commander who soldiers accuse of emptying an ammunition clip into a 13-year-old Palestinian girl to ensure she was dead.

Soldiers said the commander had approached the girl, who had already been shot and possibly killed, and repeatedly shot her as they pleaded with him to stop.

In an unusual move, the top military prosecutor, Brigadier General Avichai Mandelbleet, ordered an inquiry into the incident before the army finished its own investigation, an army spokeswoman said.

In addition, the battalion and division commanders are conducting their own investigations and will submit their findings to Army chief Lieutenant General Moshe Yaalon, she said.

The issue surfaced when soldiers who serve under the platoon commander - whose name was not made public - told Israeli media about the incident.

Iyman Hams, 13, was shot and killed on October 5.

Initially the army said soldiers shot and killed Hams as she planted a bomb near an army outpost in southern Gaza.

But after soldiers recounted a different version of events to the media, an investigation was launched.

The soldiers said they were unhappy the platoon commander had not been suspended.

In disguised voices and without revealing their identities, the soldiers told a chilling story to Israeli television stations of a platoon commander who fired two bullets from close range at the girl, who had already been shot, to confirm she was dead.

Two soldiers then described the commander going back a second time and spraying her with automatic weapons fire and they shouted to him over the two-way radio: “Don’t shoot, she’s a little girl.”

“He sprayed her. We were in shock. We couldn’t believe what he had done. Our hearts ached for her. Just a 13-year-old girl. How do you spray a girl from close range?” they said.