Elor Azaria to be moved from military base to house arrest
Published July 17, 2017
Elior Azaria at a military court hearing in Jaffa, Aug. 30, 2016. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Elor Azaria, the Israeli soldier convicted of manslaughter for shooting a downed Palestinian terrorist, will be released to house arrest.
Azaria, who was convicted in January and sentenced in February, has been confined to the closed Nachshonim military base since being arrested in March 2016. However, the time of his military service ends on Thursday and he must leave the base.
Azaria is appealing his conviction and military prosecutors are appealing his 18-month jail sentence for being too lenient. Azaria does not have to report to prison until his appeals are exhausted.
A military court ruled on Monday that Azaria will go from the army base to house arrest. He will be required to remain at his parents’ home in Ramle in central Israel and can attend Shabbat services in a synagogue on Friday night and Saturday if he is accompanied by a family member.
A military court will rule on the appeals by the end of the month, according to reports.
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.
