Jerusalem, March 11, 2010 (Pal Telegraph) - The Israeli military prosecutor charged two Israeli staff sergeants on Thursday with instructing a 9-year-old Palestinian boy to open several bags the soldiers suspected were booby-trapped during Israel's military campaign in Gaza just over a year ago.
The military said in a statement that "soldiers were strictly forbidden from making use of civilians for or during operational activity and specifically when it endangered the lives of the civilians."
If convicted, the soldiers, who are now in the army reserves, could face up to three years in jail. They were not named.
The only other soldier to have been charged so far with criminal conduct during the Gaza conflict was convicted of stealing a Palestinian's credit card.
A United Nations report released in September 2009 by a panel chaired by a South African judge, Richard Goldstone, accused Israel of several other cases of using Palestinian civilians as human shields during the Gaza war, a practice forbidden by Israel's own High Court. The Goldstone report stated that such practices violate international law.
Israel refused to cooperate with the Goldstone mission, saying that its mandate was biased from the outset, and it rejected the report.
The military police investigation that led to Thursday's indictments was opened in June 2009, according to the military, following a United Nations special representative's report on children and armed conflict and a complaint filed by the Israeli branch of Defense for Children International. The military emphasized that it was unrelated to the Goldstone Report.
The Israeli offensive came as a response to years of rocket fire against southern Israel from Gaza.
Israeli and international human rights organizations have called for an independent Israeli investigation into army conduct in Gaza outside the military framework.
About six weeks ago, the Israeli military said it had reprimanded two senior officers, a brigadier general and a colonel, for the firing of artillery shells that hit a United Nations compound in Gaza during the war.
Source: The New York Times, by Isabel Kershner
