Israeli soldier shoots camel ‘for fun’

Ramallah: Two Israeli soldiers who shot and killed a camel near the city of Jericho had been criminally charged.

A video showing two Israeli soldiers killing a camel in the occupied Jordan Valley has gone viral in embarrassing the regime’s army and forcing it to take action against the soldiers from the elite Duvdevan combat unit which mainly operates under cover in the West Bank to arrest and assassinate Palestinian suspects.

The incident occurred while the soldiers were on leave. The soldier in the passenger seat filmed the other as he drove down a road in the desert, passed the camel and fired at it from an army-issued handgun, with one of them bursting out laughing as they sped away. The soldier who filmed the incident posted it on the internet, resulting in an outcry leading the soldiers to attempt to take down the film.

“This was a serious incident that does not meet the standards expected from the Israeli soldiers,” said the Israeli army in a statement published in the Israeli media commenting on the incident. The dead camel was found later that day in the area.

Etti Altman, chair of the Israeli animal rights NGO “Let the animals live,” slammed the incident as shameful and called for an extended prison term for each of the two soldiers. “Where did their compassion go, the mercy toward defenseless creatures?”

Israeli soldiers have a record of abusing animals where only a year ago, an Israeli soldier was convicted of animal abuse after pouring boiling water on a stray cat. Other similar animal abuse incidents have been registered against the Israeli soldiers.

A Palestinian official from the Jericho and Jordan Valley Governorate said that the Israeli soldiers target Palestinian-owned animals for fun, target practices in order to dehumanise Palestinians. The official who requested to remain unnamed, as he is not allowed to address this issue with the media till a court verdict has been passed on the Israeli soldiers, said the Palestinians of the Jordan Valley areas and the Dead Sea areas are used to such Israeli inhuman practices, given the fact that the Palestinian bedouins in these areas largely depend on rearing cattle. The bedouins depend on agriculture or animal husbandry.

The official said that the Jericho Governorate will sue the soldiers only after an Israeli court passes a verdict on them.