Israeli army under fire after killing girl

A rare glimpse of the Israeli military while it targeted and killed a Palestinian child in a restricted area in the Gaza Strip is touching off anger, embarrassing the army, and reinforcing questions about military practices in the occupied territories.

After four years of fighting, shocking incidents on both sides have lost their shock value. But this time, what might otherwise have been a mere statistic in the death toll is erupting into a fiasco, including a call by a leading military analyst for the ouster of the army chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon, for allegedly playing a role in whitewashing the incident.

The killing of Iman al-Homs, 13, was graphically brought into living rooms Tuesday night on Israel's Channel Two television, complete with a recording of internal communications as a group of soldiers identified her as a child, shot her, and their commanding officer "verified" her killing with more shots. Iman, a short, slight girl wearing a school uniform and carrying a schoolbag, had entered an off-limits area and was spotted about 100 yards away from an Israeli position during the Oct. 5 incident in Rafah, Gaza Strip.

After the "verification," the company commander, identified only as Captain R., sums up by telling his soldiers: "Anyone that moves in the zone, even if it is a 3-year-old boy, should be killed."

What started out as a controversy over whether or not Captain R. emptied his magazine into Iman after her death, as some of his soldiers charge, has now taken on wider significance and raised troubling questions about the moral standards of the Israeli military, say critics. While the army is saying the incident is "exceptional," critics say it reflects norms in which killing of Palestinian noncombatants is accepted and not seriously investigated.

"Disregard for human life and being trigger-happy is not exceptional at all," says Nimrod Amzalak, a staffer at B'tselem, an Israeli human rights organization. "The exceptional part here is that it was documented."

Army spokeswoman Maj. Sharon Finegold says the incident "does not reflect the norms, values, and conduct of Israel Defense Force soldiers." She adds that it took place "during combat activities in the most violent place during the past four years." Major Finegold says: "The soldiers felt they were under immediate threat. We still don't have an answer as to what the girl was doing there."

She says that in some instances, Palestinian fighters have used children as decoys to distract the Israeli army and in other cases to test how close one can get to a position without being shot. Finegold dismisses the charge of laxity about civilian deaths. "Every death of an innocent is investigated, and unethical behavior is punished," she says.

The controversy is erupting just a week after an Israeli tank killed three Egyptian policemen on the Egyptian side of Rafah, with the army saying they were mistaken for Palestinian fighters.

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