Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit has ordered a probe into protesters who rallied against IDF chief Gadi Eisenkot outside the military tribunal for Elor Azaria a day earlier.
Ultra-nationalist protesters outside the trial in support of Azaria chanted, among other things, “Gadi be careful, Rabin is looking for a friend,” referring to former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was assassinated by a right-wing extremist in 1995.
Eisenkot on Tuesday rejected claims by Azaria’s supporters that he should be seen as a child whom the nation is committed to protecting. “An 18-year-old man serving in the army is not ‘everyone’s child,’” Eisenkot said. “He is a fighter, a soldier, who must dedicate his life to carry out the tasks we give him. We cannot be confused about this.”
Supporters of Elor Azaria protest outside military court in Tel Aviv on January 4, 2017. ( Tomer Neuberg/Flash90)
According to social media tracking firm Vigo, some 2,500 posts put online in the past day threatened Eisenkot.
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