Posted on 01/06/2004 2:20:59 PM PST by anotherview
Jan. 6, 2004
IDF: Soldiers can shoot fence protestors
By MARGOT DUDKEVITCH
A senior IDF officer warned on Tuesday that soldiers may be forced to shoot live bullets again at demonstrators seeking to harm the security fence.
"If they have no choice, soldiers may be forced to shoot using live bullets at those seeking to damage the fence," the officer said.
The officer noted that recent Palestinian media reports mentioned the growing cooperation between locals and protest groups affiliated with the Left planning to step up protests at the security fence.
The army will not allow anyone to harm the fence or cross it the officer said, noting that the erection of the fence cost millions of dollars of the taxpayers money and signs posted in three languages posted near the fence warn residents.
His statements came less then a day after the army published the findings of an investigation launched by the OC Central Command to examine the circumstances that led to the shooting and subsequent wounding of Gil Na'amati ten days ago in a demonstration near Mas'ha where protesters attempted to tear the fence down.
Describing the current situation as problematic, the senior officer said "as far as I am concerned we are not talking about a protest, but violent clashes intent on harming the fence."
"There were no attempts to acquire the necessary permission to hold the protest and there were no attempts to identify themselves as Israelis. There was one sign written in Hebrew, but it was one among slogans and PLO and PFLP flags," the senior officer said.
The officer noted that a day before the protest, the suicide bomber who perpetrated the attack at the Geha intersection set out from the area where the protest occurred. Two days after the protest, two terrorists en route to perpetrate an attack were caught by security forces in the same area.
Details of the investigation released shortly before midnight Monday found no fault with the soldiers' behavior and treatment of the incident and that they and their commanders acted in accordance to the open fire regulations applicable in areas near the security fence.
The findings were upheld by Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Moshe Ya'alon and OC Cebtral Command Maj.Gen. Moshe Kaplinsky.
The former accepted the findings and ordered that the Golani district commander examine and monitor the proper operational procedures.
Kaplinsky ordered the immediate implementation of the findings and recommendations stipulated in the report when dealing with rioters in areas along the security fence and study the necessary changes regarding open fire regulations.
The investigating committee found a number of foul-ups in the early preparations carried out by the company regarding deployment in the security fence area. The report noted that despite receiving information that a demonstration was expected to take place the information related to a possible protest in the Kalkilya area and did not relate to a violent demonstration elsewhere.
The findings stated that the company had the necessary equipment used to disperse rioters at their disposal but failed to distribute it to the patrol vehicles, which goes against regulations the report said.
The committee also found fault in the company's way of preparing for missions, partly due to the short time it had for training soldiers because of ongoing operational duty and failure to note the inexperience of the soldiers in dealing with such situations.
The committee recommended examining the possibility of adding to the existing open fire regulations near the security fence and using methods to disperse protesters (rubber bullets and tear gas) as part of the early procedure to be implemented before resorting to shooting towards the legs of protesters which is applied when arresting suspects.
Maybe if the IDF shoots a few of these left-wing European idiots they'll stop coming to Israel to support terrorists and terrorism.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
