Reservist released after complaining about open fire order
By Amos Harel, Haaretz Correspondent and Haaretz Service
A reserve soldier who went to the Association for Civil Rights in Israel after the IDF issues a directive allowing soldiers to shoot and kill and Palestinians they see observing army activity at the Gaza Strip settlement of Netzarim has been released from his reserve service, Israel Radio reported Sunday morning.
The soldiers, Zafrir Goldberg, went to his commanders over the matter but when the IDF did not amend this directive, he went to ACRI which in turn wrote to the Judge Advocate General. The human rights group claimed in his letter that the order essentially permitted “killing people even if they constitute no apparent risk,” and that it is a “blatantly illegal order.”
A senior army officer told Haaretz in response to the letter that "the new orders permit firing only at a terrorist who is observing, not at anyone holding a pair of binoculars. The soldiers have clear criteria for determining who is a terrorist."
The new rules were apparently a response to the attack on Netzarim two weeks ago, in which three IDF soldiers, including two women, were killed. The subsequent investigation revealed that the two terrorists, one each from Hamas and Islamic Jihad, had conducted lengthy observations of IDF activity in the area before the attack. Indeed, a senior Islamic Jihad official said this week that the organization gathered intelligence on IDF activity in the area for three months before the attack. That is also why, immediately after the attack, the IDF razed three multistory buildings that had apparently served the Palestinians as lookout posts.
Similar rules of engagement are in place in other areas of the Gaza Strip that the IDF defines as high-risk.