Off-duty soldier charged with murder for alleged road rage killing of Druze man

State prosecutors charged a 21-year-old soldier with murder on Friday for the January 8 killing of a Druze man in his twenties following an alleged road rage incident on a highway in northern Israel.

In an indictment published Friday, prosecutors said the soldier, who was off-duty at the time of the shooting, loaded his military assault rifle, then used it to beat Daliyat al-Karmel resident Sharif Hadid in the face and smash the back windshield of the car Hadid was traveling in.

The soldier, whose name remains under a gag order, then allegedly shot Hadid when the victim approached with a sharp object, and kept shooting after Hadid retreated.

Hebrew media has reported over the past week that the soldier claimed to interrogators that he shot Hadid because he felt threatened, after the victim and his brother advanced toward him “in a threatening manner.”

Hadid’s brother, who was driving him, immediately took Hadid to Haifa’s Rambam Medical Center, where Hadid was declared dead from his wounds, the indictment said.

Immediately after the shooting, the soldier allegedly picked up his discarded bullet shells and tossed them aside, and then replaced the magazine in his gun with a fully loaded one. Prosecutors said the suspect did those things apparently to conceal his culpability, “with the purpose of preventing or thwarting a legal procedure.”

He is charged with murder, grievous bodily harm, arbitrary assault, purposely damaging a vehicle and tampering with a legal process.

The Ynet news site reported that, on Friday, the soldier’s lawyer requested that the court extend the gag order on the suspect’s name. According to the site, the request was made to prevent the suspect’s brother from harassment, and was accepted by the judge. The gag order will reportedly lift in two weeks.

According to the indictment, Hadid was being driven northward by his brother on Route 6, a major central toll road, when the soldier’s brother, who was driving in the same direction with the soldier and their respective girlfriends, cut off the Hadids’ car, forcing it to stop short.

The two cars then began passing through lanes and cutting in front of each other, making gestures at each other and “disturbing traffic,” before the drivers both pulled over at the side of the road, where the soldier attacked Hadid, the indictment said.

“The entire time,” the girlfriends of the soldier and his brother pleaded with them to stop, saying they were putting them in danger, according to the indictment. When the soldier and his brother pulled over, the soldier’s girlfriend, who is also in the army, refused his demand that she give him her gun, according to the indictment.

The brother was initially arrested on suspicion of tampering with evidence but was not charged.