Kim Bullimore
On November 17, an Israeli military court acquitted of all charges the captain accused of the manslaughter of 13-year-old student Iman Al-Hams. Captain R, whose identity was suppressed by the Israeli military, was also charged with the illegal use of his weapon, conduct unbecoming an officer and perverting the course of justice by asking soldiers under his command to change their testimony.
Iman was shot dead on October 6 as she walked to school in the Rafah refugee camp. She was one of 30 children killed during the 18-day Israeli offensive in Gaza at the time. Her body was riddled with 17 bullets. Initially the Israeli occupation forces claimed that Iman was shot because soldiers believed she was carrying explosives in her school bag. But the bag contained only school books.
The incident received widespread coverage in the Israeli media when soldiers under Captain R's command went public with the incident to the Israeli mass daily Yedioth Ahronoth. Tapes of a radio exchange between the captain and other soldiers were broadcast by the Israeli media in the wake of the killing.
In the recording, Iman is clearly identified by soldiers in the military's operation rooms as "a little girl" who was "scared to death". According to the tape, Captain R instructed soldiers under his command that "Anything that's mobile, that moves in the zone, even if it's a three-year-old, needs to be killed". The tapes revealed that Captain R fired on the girl and then, in his words, went to "confirm the kill". According to some of the soldiers under his command, the captain emptied his magazine into Iman's body.
According to the Israeli Ha'aretz newspaper, defence lawyers for the military officer successfully argued that "confirming the kill" was a known Israeli military practice "employed to eliminate immediate threats". The defence lawyers also noted that some of the soldiers under the captain's command later retracted their statements accusing him of misconduct.
In the wake of the verdict, Iman's father Samir al-Hams told the Israeli media, "This acquittal tells us more about the court than it tells us about this criminal". He went on to say: "Had an Arab killed a Jewish girl, this would not have been his sentence."
In June 2005, the Human Rights Watch report "Promoting Impunity: The Israeli military's failure to investigate wrongdoing" noted that Israeli soldiers were rarely charged or tried for killing Palestinian civilians. According to the report, between September 2000 and November 2004, more than 1600 Palestinian civilians not involved in hostilities, including at least 500 children, were killed by Israeli forces, and thousands more seriously injured. Only 5% of those incidents were ever investigated.
According to HRW's Middle East director Sarah Leah Whitson, "most of Israel's investigations of civilian casualties have been a sham", and the failure to properly investigate civilian deaths "has created an atmosphere that encourages soldiers to think they can literally get away with murder".
From 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly, November 23, 2005.
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