Israel suspends officer accused of killing girl

The Israeli army today suspended a company commander who is accused of repeatedly shooting an injured 13-year-old Palestinian girl to ensure she was dead, but said the punishment was not because of that incident.

Announcing the results of a preliminary investigation, the army’s southern commander, Major General Dan Harel, said the officer was suspended for “failure of command” and poor relations with his subordinates.

However, the investigation found no “unethical” behaviour by the commander or his soldiers during the incident. A separate military police investigation is continuing.

The officer, whose name was not released, was accused by some of his soldiers pumping bullets from an automatic rifle into Iyman Hams after troops shot her when she entered an unauthorised zone near an army post close to the camp.

The officer has denied the accusations against him, claiming some of the veteran soldiers made up the story because they were angry at him, a new officer, for taking away some of their privileges.

Hundreds of Palestinian children have been killed since fighting erupted four years ago, but the army rarely launches investigations into the incidents.

The incident began when the girl approached the outpost. Her relatives said she had been on her way to school.

In interviews with the Yediot Ahronot newspaper, soldiers serving in the platoon said the girl was about 70 yards from the outpost when troops first opened fire. The girl threw down a bag she was carrying and ran away, before collapsing at a distance of about 300 yards, the soldiers said.

“Somebody already shot her and she fell. Then she was hit by a number of bullets from different posts,” the soldier said. “Our platoon commander then charged toward her and shot her with two bullets, returned to her … and sprayed her with bullets on automatic,” one of the soldiers in the platoon told the paper.

Another soldier said he warned his comrades even before they opened fire that the suspicious figure approaching their outpost was a girl.

“At the beginning we thought it was a terrorist, then I saw it was a little girl. I was sure she was 10 or 12, something like that, and I immediately reported it over the radio,” the soldier said.

The platoon commander told the inquiry that when he ran toward the girl after she had collapsed, he was firing at Palestinian gunmen in the area, not at her.

Palestinian hospital officials said the girl was shot at least 15 times, mostly in the upper body.