Reprimand but no trial for IDF officer who ordered ‘salute’ fire at Gaza building

The IDF Military Advocate General on Tuesday recommended against prosecuting a senior officer who ordered his tank units to fire a volley of shells at a building in the Gaza Strip in honor of a fellow officer who was killed by sniper fire from the structure the day before.

Brig. Gen. Sharon Afek decided that Lt. Col. Neria Yeshurun, who was a tank battalion commander during the 2014 war when the incident occurred, would be reprimanded by Deputy IDF Chief of Staff Yair Golan but would not tried in court as there was no evidence that the shelling did not have an operational justification.

Army investigators last June reviewed allegations that Yeshurun ordered the heavy strike on the complex as a way to “honor” his slain subordinate, Capt. Dimitri Levitas, who was shot the previous day by a Palestinian sniper hiding atop a medical clinic in the northern Gaza City neighborhood of Shejaiya.

In a recording of an internal IDF communication obtained by the Israeli website NRG, Yeshurun could be heard instructing his soldiers to salute Levitas’s memory in lieu of attending his funeral, which took place that day. Due to ongoing operations, the soldiers of Levitas’s unit could not be released to attend it.

“I would like for us, here in the middle of Shejaiya in Gaza, to join in with those accompanying Dima on his final journey, and shoot a barrage of honor to salute our officer,” he could be heard saying with a shaky voice.

Military prosecutors found that Yeshurun’s short address to his soldiers was unacceptable because it sent the message that a volley as an act of revenge was legitimate.

“Such a message is likely to blur the boundaries between the permitted and the forbidden, and to induce the failure of soldiers and commanders who are exposed to it, especially during combat,” the advocate general said. “The message does not match IDF values and in its expression there is a command failure.”

The military prosecutor also advised that the results of the disciplinary procedure be taken into account in future decisions about Yeshurun’s deployments and possible promotions.

After the announcement of an investigation against him, a Facebook page in support of Yeshurun emerged online, garnering thousands of likes and messages of identification with the senior officer.

Yeshurun has not disputed his statements but said the decision to bombard the building was not actually taken for the reasons he gave his troops. Following the announcement of the MAG investigation last year he told NRG that he ordered the shelling as part of a wider operation targeting Hamas fighters who were hiding in the area. He claimed his reference to Levitas was only meant to raise morale among troops unable to attend the funeral.

The 50-day war killed more than 2,100 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to Palestinian sources in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip. The IDF says about half of those killed were combatants. Seventy-three Israelis were killed in the fighting, 66 of them soldiers.

Israel launched the operation in Gaza last summer in a mission to halt relentless rocket fire by Hamas terrorists. Hamas seized control of Gaza in a violent coup against the Palestinian Authority in 2007.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.