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Elor Azaria received a hero's welcome when he returned Tuesday at the junction in the West Bank city of Hebron, where he shot dead a stricken Palestinian striker there was two and a half years.
Dozens of young boys chanted "Hebron loves you!" Upon arrival of the 22-year-old man, convicted of manslaughter after the incident, and served a nine-month prison sentence for the murder in May.
Supporters posed for photos with Azaria and stopped to congratulate him for his actions in uniform.
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The return home was organized by activists of the far-right group Otzma Yehudit, including Baruch Marzel and Itamar Ben Gvir.
The former soldier was sentenced to 18 months in jail for the murder of Abdul Fatah in 2016. Sharif in the city of Hebron. Azariah, the so-called "Hebron shooter", was convicted last year of the badbadination of Sharif, who had attacked two IDF soldiers a few minutes earlier with a knife [19659008] Elor Azaria, a former IDF soldier, a Palestinian unarmed and injured badailant during his military service in the West Bank city of Hebron, seen after his release from prison and returned to his hometown of Ramla on May 8, 2018. (Hadas Parush / Flash90
Gadi Eisenkot reduced the four-month period and in March a parole board ordered a further nine-month reduction.
The shooting was videotaped by a human rights group and widely broadcast online. He showed Sharif, 21, injured on the ground, injured by another Palestinian after stabbing and wounding a soldier, according to the army.
About 11 minutes after the first shot, Azaria, sergeant and military nurse at the time. He said that he feared that Sharif was wearing an explosive belt and that he could blow himself up, a claim that the judges rejected
. The case of the Hebron shooter revealed deep divisions in Israeli society over the activities of the army in the West Bank, some (mainly right) arguing that it was behaved heroically by killing the Palestinian badailant, while others said that he had broken the law.
Senior army officers strongly denounced Azaria's actions, but right-wing politicians, including Netanyahu, demanded that he be pardoned.
Comparisons were
Those who criticize the conviction of Azariah have particularly highlighted the imprisonment sentence of Palestinian teenager Ahed Tamimi.
She was sentenced to eight months in prison following a video that was broadcast. viral showed Tamimi, 16 years old at the time, slapping two Israeli soldiers in the West Bank in December.
