JERUSALEM — Israel's president on Saturday pardoned the combat medic who shot dead at close range a badly wounded Palestinian attacker who had stabbed a soldier in the occupied West Bank, a case that divided the country a decade ago.
Elor Azaria's conviction in 2017 for manslaughter and his release after serving two-thirds of his 18-month sentence drew enormous attention in Israel, where military service is compulsory for most Jewish men. In his first interview after his release, Azaria said that "I would act exactly the same, because that's how I needed to act."
Azaria had approached Abdel Fattah al-Sharif as he lay on the ground, unarmed and badly hurt, after stabbing a soldier in the city of Hebron. A cellphone video captured Azaria shooting al-Sharif in the head.
The office of President Isaac Herzog said in a statement that he acted on the recommendation of Defense Minister Israel Katz. The statement cited the time that had passed, and the spirit of the approaching Yom Kippur, or Day of Atonement, as among the factors in the decision.
Herzog's office also said Azaria, who was 20 when he was sentenced, had “expressed his sorrow” in his request. The statement noted that in an earlier request, he called his gunshot an “operational error.”
In a separate statement, Katz called it a “right, humane, and fitting decision” and said Azaria had been in a “complex operational mission.” But the military’s chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, in a letter to the defense minister had said the pardon shouldn't be granted, Israeli media reported.
The conviction was a rare case of a military court ruling against a soldier for deadly action taken in the field. Top generals had pressed for his prosecution, while many in the Israeli public supported Azaria at a time when there had been a series of stabbings and car-ramming attacks by Palestinians or Israeli Arabs. Some supporters protested outside the trial.
On Saturday, Israel's hard-line National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said in a statement that "canceling the criminal record of someone who killed a terrorist makes me emotional and very happy."
Some Palestinians and human rights groups had described Azaria's sentence as far too lenient. Prosecutors had sought a sentence of three to five years.
The statement by Herzog's office on Saturday said that his decision “does not constitute a reassessment of the case.”
The divisions over Azaria's case led to public polling and political pressures that led the defense minister at the time, Moshe Yaalon, to resign.
After the verdict, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for Azaria to be pardoned.
After the sentencing, the Palestinian government minister in charge of prisoner affairs, Issa Karaka, called it a “joke.”
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