Israel Prosecutors Appeal ‘Excessively Lenient’ Sentence For Soldier Who Killed Downed Palestinian

Image by Getty Images
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israeli military prosecutors filed an appeal of the 18-month jail sentence of an Israeli soldier who shot a downed Palestinian terrorist.
Elor Azaria, 20, who was convicted of manslaughter in January in an Israeli military court, was sentenced last month by a panel of three judges at the Israel Defense Forces headquarters in Tel Aviv. Azaria was also demoted one rank, to private from sergeant.
Military prosecutors had asked for a sentence of three to five years. Also pending in the same court is an appeal of Azaria’s conviction.
In their appeal, prosecutors called the sentence “excessively lenient” in light of prior rulings by the Supreme Court and military courts, Haaretz reported. The prosecution also warned that it could cause a new, more lenient precedent.
In their sentencing decision, the judges stressed that the severity of the incident was mitigated by the fact that it took place in an active combat situation. This was a key component of the defense’s case.
Azaria, a medic in the elite Kfir Brigade, came on the scene following a Palestinian stabbing attack on soldiers in Hebron in the West Bank on March 24, 2016. One assailant was killed, and Abdel Fattah al-Sharif was injured. Minutes later, while Sharif was lying on the ground, Azaria shot him in the head in a shooting that was captured on video by a local resident for the Israeli human rights NGO B’Tselem.
Azaria was arrested the same day and indicted nearly a month later. Autopsy reports showed that the shots by Azaria killed Sharif.
Prior to shooting Sharif, Azaria had cared for a stabbed soldier.
Several right-wing lawmakers have called for Azaria to be pardoned.
Azaria does not need to report to prison until his appeals are exhausted. He remains confined to the Nachshonim military base, where he has been since being arrested.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Most Popular
- 1
Fast Forward Ye debuts ‘Heil Hitler’ music video that includes a sample of a Hitler speech
- 2
Culture Cardinals are Catholic, not Jewish — so why do they all wear yarmulkes?
- 3
News School Israel trip turns ‘terrifying’ for LA students attacked by Israeli teens
- 4
Fast Forward Student suspended for ‘F— the Jews’ video defends himself on antisemitic podcast
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward Police clash with pro-Palestinian protesters in Brooklyn as Columbia library takeover fallout continues
-
Opinion This week proved it: Trump’s approach to antisemitism at Columbia is horribly ineffective
-
Yiddish קאָנצערט לכּבֿוד דעם ייִדישן שרײַבער און רעדאַקטאָר באָריס סאַנדלערConcert honoring Yiddish writer and editor Boris Sandler
דער בעל־שׂימחה האָט יאָרן לאַנג געדינט ווי דער רעדאַקטאָר פֿונעם ייִדישן פֿאָרווערטס.
-
Fast Forward Trump’s new pick for surgeon general blames the Nazis for pesticides on our food
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.