Washington DC, Sunday, December 26, 2004Case of Israeli
soldier charged with killing girl seen as
complex By Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson
Knight Ridder Newspapers RAFAH, Gaza Strip - He is known
as "Capt. R," his identity kept secret by Israeli
military court order. To many, he's a cold-hearted
Israeli killer charged with pumping multiple M-16
bullets into a 13-year-old Palestinian girl at
close range while she lay in a gully on the edge of
this battle-weary border town.  So
egregious was the Oct. 5 [2004] killing
that Capt. R is the first Israeli soldier to face
such charges, says the military prosecutor. The
case prompted Israeli soul-searching unparalleled
since a 12-year-old Palestinian boy was filmed
dying in the arms of his anguished father during a
firefight between soldiers and demonstrators four
years ago.
To others, however, the case of Capt. R is far
more complex. His lawyers say they will not allow
him to be portrayed as a "bloodthirsty monster" or
to be railroaded by a military intent on avoiding
uncomfortable revelations about its culture or its
practices. Friends note that Capt. R is not Jewish, but a
member of Israel's Druze minority, drafted into the
Israeli army. They say he was unpopular with his
subordinates, whose testimony provides much of the
evidence against him. His lawyers note there are questions even about
how many of the bullets that struck the victim came
from Capt. R's weapon. They insist he was
responding to fire aimed at him, and the family
refuses to exhume her body. The crime scene is a
sniper zone, the lawyers say. "He does not hate the Palestinians," said one of
his lawyers, Yoav Many. But he also does not
anguish over having "justifiably killed the
girl." "He was there to maintain security in a place
where extremely hostile combatants are immersed in
the regular population," Many said. The prosecutor, Ronen Ketsev, said the
case cannot be decided on the difficult position
combat soldiers find themselves in in Gaza. "I can understand the antagonism he feels toward
the enemy ... the same way American and British
soldiers feel toward terrorists in Iraq," Ketsev
said of the captain, whose court-martial opened
this month. "The problem is, he aimed all of his
feelings toward her. She was not the enemy, she was
a young girl." A military judge,
concerned for the officer's safety, has
prohibited publication or broadcast of the
captain's name or picture, even though many
Israelis and Palestinians know who he is by word
of mouth and his court-martial, the next hearing
in which is Thursday, is open to the
public. Capt. R was extremely good at his job, friends
and relatives say. A career soldier from the
northern Israeli village of Horfeish, he is a buff
and enthusiastic basic training commander for elite
units in the Givati Brigade. That may have been one of the reasons for
friction between him and his subordinates at his
most recent command, the military outpost of Girit,
which lies about 300 yards west of the
Tel-el-Sultan neighborhood in Rafah. Friends say he
was determined to bring discipline to the company,
which was composed of many soldiers nearing the end
of their three-year draft. Such "veterans" are
unofficially spared hardship duties, some former
soldiers say. That Capt. R wasn't Jewish also contributed to
the friction, friends said. As a Druze, he is a
member of a minority Arab sect whose religion is an
11th-century spin-off of Islam. Embracing their dual identity is not easy for
the 100,000 Druze in Israel, according to leaders
of their community. Unlike other Arabs with Israeli
citizenship, Druze are subject to the draft. At the
same time, Druze and Arabs in other countries --
Druze are common in Syria and Lebanon as well --
criticize them for serving in the Israeli military.
Israeli Druze have long argued against their being
compelled to serve in the military. Capt. R felt conflicted about his role, friends
say. He embraced his military career, but once told
his father that the Palestinian women he saw in
Gaza reminded him of his mother. A photo shot during a recent mission to uncover
weapon-smuggling tunnels in Rafah showed him
releasing pigeons from a cage before bulldozers
leveled the home the cage was in. Another featured
him sitting with a handful of Palestinian children
while one of his subordinates handed out chocolate
bars. Nevertheless, the captain was determined to
protect his men, Many said. The perils were palpable in Girit, where the men
had slept in armored vehicles or their reinforced
mess hall for three nights leading up to the
shooting because of a high-level terror alert. Ketsev and the Israeli
military refuse to elaborate on what transpired
the morning of Oct. 5 beyond what appears in the
five-count indictment. In it, Capt. R. is
charged with two counts of illegally using his
weapon, obstructing justice, exceeding the limit
of violent force that was authorized and conduct
unbecoming an officer. According to the document, he broke military law
by firing twice at the victim as she lay on the
ground. Once he used two bullets, then he returned
and "pointed his weapon downward toward the girl"
and fired 10 bullets "until his magazine was
empty." He later told his soldiers to violate the rules
of engagement, telling them that "anyone who moves
in this area even if it's a 3-year-old needs to be
killed," according to a radio transmission cited in
the indictment. In an audiotape of Girit radio transmissions
broadcast by Israeli television, jittery soldiers
are heard describing the infiltrator as a little
girl running for cover after they fired warning
shots. They opened fire four minutes later. The captain is then heard saying, "Confirm the
kill." Reviews of the incident by Capt. R's chain of
command initially cleared him of wrongdoing. IDF
Chief of Staff Moshe Yaalon defended him,
saying the threat was real, given the circumstances
soldiers operate under along the Gaza-Egypt
border. But then two of the captain's subordinates told
Israeli reporters that the captain had shot the
girl as she lay on the ground. An investigation was
opened, leading to the indictment. Prosecutor Kelsey concedes that at least one of
the witnesses holds a grudge against the captain.
But he says he is confident the charges are
just. "It would be much happier for me if this were
all lies and conspiracies against the accused,"
Ketsev said. "If we do prove the charges are
correct ... the moral of the story will be learned
in schools, so that this is the first and last case
of its kind in the history of Israel." Defense lawyer Many insists the events --
including the comment about the killing a
3-year-old - were taken out of context. "He's
talking to his soldiers just minutes after a combat
event. He's not to be taken literally," Many
explained. "This was a figure of speech." Many said the incident began when Capt. R. was
awakened by Girit's warning siren and gunfire. A
soldier at the gate had spotted a Palestinian
trespasser only 70 yards away. Only a head was
visible, and it vanished as soon as the shooting
began. It was the first time in his two-month
command that Capt. R's men had fired without a
verbal warning. Within minutes, the captain led a patrol to the
dune, where the lookout first saw the suspected
attacker. They approached using standard army
procedure: Two steps, then drop; two steps, then
drop. Eleven yards away behind another knoll, he
caught a glimpse of the trespasser's clothing. He
ordered his men to hang back. Capt. R then charged over the hill, firing two
shots to immobilize the enemy and quickly returning
to the first dune. He soon returned for a closer look. Gunfire
erupted, with the sand "jumping" all around him,
Many said. The captain swung his gun around in an arc of
protective fire above the girl's body, emptying out
the remaining 10 bullets in his M-16, and again
dropped back. He radioed to the base that his
target "appears to be a girl between 15 and 18, but
I'm not sure she's a girl." That didn't make her less of a threat, Many
explained. Israeli soldiers are generally wary of
any Palestinian, even children whom militants
sometimes recruit to test security measures, lob
explosives or lure soldiers out so snipers can pick
them off. The "terrorist" Capt. R and his men had killed
turned out to be 13-year-old Iman al Hams.
When Palestinian medics retrieved her bloodied
body, they found her white headscarf, striped
school tunic and blue jeans riddled with bullet
holes. A bomb squad located al Hams' book bag several
yards away. It contained no weapons, Ketsev said, a
claim defense lawyers argue can't be proved because
the bag was examined only by an explosives-sniffing
dog and was then buried by an armored
bulldozer. Al Hams' father, Samir al Hams, said his
sons had begged their sister not to go to school
that day because of gunfire nearby. But she was
insistent. The headmistress at her school says the girl
arrived shortly before 7 a.m., but seemed to panic
when gunfire broke out and ran toward Girit, about
700 yards away. Onlookers shouted for her to turn
back, but Al Hams seemed disoriented, heading
deeper into the military no-go zone packed with
sandy knolls, brush and rubble. Minutes later, she
was dead. Her father said her bag carried only
schoolbooks. He said no one in his family belongs
to any Palestinian militant group and that he
allowed the radical group Hamas to feature her on
their posters "for religious reasons." "We are Muslims and I wanted her to be satisfied
with me, in her grave," the elementary school
teacher explained. "So I let an Islamic faction
take credit." Al Hams' father said he is surprised that the
soldiers came forward. He's convinced that without
their testimony, his daughter's slaying would be
quickly forgotten. But he finds the maximum
punishment of three years' imprisonment
lenient. "If it were the other way around and a
Palestinian had killed and mutilated an Israeli
girl, what do you think his sentence would be?," he
asks. "He'd never see the light of day
again." © 2004 KR
Washington Bureau and wire service
sources. 
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Swept out to sea like Robert Maxwell
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write to David
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