Commander implicated in death of Palestinian girl arrested

Military Police have arrested a Givati Brigade company commander on suspicion he shot dead a 13-year-old Palestinian girl at close range, after she had already been shot by troops and was laying on the ground.

The commander of the elite brigade, known only to the media as Captain R., has already been suspended from his position. He will be brought before a judge within two days.

The event happened on October 5, when the girl, Iman Alhamas, was shot by soldiers from the Givati Brigade near the IDF Girit outpost near Tel el-Sultan in western Rafah, in the Gaza Strip.

The army's explanation of the incident was that the soldiers who initially fired believed the girl to be a terrorist, and that her school bag contained explosives. The bag was later discovered to have held only schoolbooks.

The military decided to investigate the shooting after soldiers reported their company commander shot the girl at close range while attempting to perform a "confirmed kill." Relations between several soldiers and the commander were strained even before the incident.

The IDF Chief of Staff, Lieutenant General Moshe Ya'alon, approved the decision to suspend Captain R. from his position several weeks ago, although Ya'alon decided that at that stage the soldiers' reports were still unproven. Ya'alon announced that he had not found "an ethical problem" in the conduct of the company commander and soldiers involved in the incident, because it had not been shown that there had been a "confirmed kill."

Still, problems in the commander's judgment during the incident were uncovered - such as his decision to leave the position in spite of a warning that there was a danger of snipers in the area. These problems were the official reason for suspending the commander. Military sources report that after the suspension, there is little chance that R. will return to his former job.