Relatives of the Palestinian attacker fatally shot by Israeli Sgt. Elor Azaria said a manslaughter conviction against the soldier handed down in military court Wednesday did not go far enough, and they would seek a murder charge in the International Criminal Court.
The uncle of Abdel Fattah al-Sharif, Fathi al-Sharif, told The Times of Israel on Wednesday that he thought the trial itself was fair, but the soldier should have been charged with murder and not the lesser charge of manslaughter.
“The court decided it was a revenge killing for another soldier. If the issue is clear for all the world… why wasn’t there a just verdict?” he asked.
“Since there is no other court to turn in Israel, we have to turn to international courts,” he argued.
Abdel Fattah al-Sharif was one of two assailants who attempted to stab soldiers in the West Bank city of Hebron on March 24. They were both shot during the attack, and videos show Azaria later shooting Abdel Fattah al-Sharif in the head as he lay bleeding on the ground. The second attacker also died at the scene.
On Wednesday, a military tribunal convicted Azaria of manslaughter, rejecting his claim that he had acted in self defense. Sentencing in the highly charged case has not yet been scheduled and Azaria could face up to 20 years in prison.
The father of Abdel Fattah al-Sharif, Yusri al-Sharif, said Azaria should be given a life sentence — the same way convicted Palestinian killers are.
“For me, a just verdict will be one that is similar to the verdicts our sons (in Israeli prisons) get,” he told reporters in Hebron. “But Israel is trying its own son, so there is a possibility it will be lenient.”
The case was closely followed by many Palestinians, who often complain that Israel refuses to prosecute crimes committed by its soldiers. The last manslaughter conviction against an Israeli soldier came 12 years ago.
In Hebron’s central Ibn Rashd square, hundreds of people staged a protest sit-in with members of the Sharif family while the verdict was being read.
A spokesperson told the crowd that the family would, with the help of the Palestinian leadership, continue to push for a murder charge against Azaria in international courts, according to a report in the Palestinian news agency Ma'an.
“Our response as a family to the show trial for our son’s killer [is to say] it is a farcical trial, like the rest of the trials for crimes by [Israeli] soldiers and settlers against our children,” said the representative, who was not named in the report.
He added: “We will follow behind our political leadership and take the case of the martyr Abdel Fattah al-Sharif to the International Criminal Court to prosecute the hateful Israeli soldier, and we will pursue him in all the international human rights forums,” he added.
A spokesman for the Palestinian government, Yousef al-Mahmoud, said that in light of the conviction against Azaria, the PA would be asking for international investigations into the hundreds of suspected Palestinian attackers killed by Israelis over the past year.
“The conviction of the soldier who executed al-Sharif happened because the crime was documented on video and was transmitted on TV for the whole world to see,” al-Mahmoud said.
By Dov Lieber
