Former soldier defends prisoner photos

A FORMER Israeli soldier who posted photos on Facebook of herself in uniform smiling beside bound and blindfolded Palestinian prisoners has admitted her actions were “thoughtless”, but stopped short of apologising.

Both the Israeli army and Palestinian officials condemned Eden Aberjil over the photographs — one of which was accompanied on Facebook by an exchange with a friend including jokes and sexual innuendoes.

Aberjil called her decision to post the photos, taken in 2008 near the Gaza Strip, “thoughtless and innocent”. But she added: “I still don’t understand what wasn’t okay.”

“There was no statement in the photos about violence, about disrespect, about anything that would hurt that person. I just had my picture taken with someone in the background,” she told Israel’s Army Radio.

However, “when I understood that so many people were hurt by those pictures, I removed them”.