[austin-cheney]

Until corrective actions with criminal penalties occur incidents like these almost certainly continue with possible increases of frequency and severity. More importantly though when this becomes a matter of conduct and military discipline is that it will spread to other areas even outside Gaza.

This isn’t just a matter of vague speculation as there are historical cases outside of Israel on which to see how things like this develop and what the consequences are both for the victims and the soldiers. These historical accounts also indicate soldiers committing these sorts of actions become victims themselves with catastrophic mental health disorders.

[throw9032093]

The idea Israeli government would hold anyone accountable is a laughable.

Israel got in trouble with ICJ court, because of quotes from top government officials. Government of Israel was very specific what they will do to Gaza! This was even full scale bombing started!

Trying to reinterpret this as a problem of "military discipline", and "soldiers are victim as well" is just another level of cynicism!

[edanm]

> The idea Israeli government would hold anyone accountable is a laughable.

It's happened, many times. Usually this doesn't make front-page news, but soldiers that break the law are sometimes held accountable. Not nearly enough, and I think it should be far more publicized as a deterrent effect (the fact that it isn't is a pretty big indictment of the current government). But it's certainly not laughable.

[edanm]

Btw, the literal sub-headline of the article includes this sentence:

"prompting the military prosecution to call for a review into possible war crimes".

[amanaplanacanal]

Who is gonna arrest Bibi?

[edanm]

Well, he is on trial. So he could be arrested. Prime Ministers have been arrested (and jailed!) before.

A part of what the Isareli opposition has been pushing for in the last few years has been removing Netanyahu from power and presumably jailing him because of the corruption charges.

[HappyPanacea]

The same people who arrested Olmert

[cma]

For each of their "operations" on Gaza they usually had one or two soldiers in trouble for something like stealing and using a civilians credit card. When there were many more serious crimes like deliberately targeting the disabled.