Israeli soldier who shot wounded Palestinian in the head pardoned ‘in the spirit’ of Jewish holiday

Israeli President Isaac Herzog has pardoned Elor Azaria, the former army medic filmed shooting a badly wounded Palestinian in the head in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron in 2016. 

Azaria shot Abdel Fattah Al-Sharif in March 2016. Al-Sharif had stabbed and wounded an occupation soldier, but Israeli troops had already shot him. The injured Palestinian lay on the ground for about 11 minutes before Azaria killed him. Al-Sharif was unarmed and badly hurt when Azaria approached him.

The horrific killing of the Al-Sharif by Azaria was captured on video, sparking outrage. 

Herzog’s office said the president acted on the recommendation of Defence Minister Israel Katz. It cited the time that had passed and the spirit of Yom Kippur among its reasons. 

The statement said Azaria had “expressed his sorrow” in his request. The same statement noted that in an earlier request, Azaria had called the shot an “operational error”.

The army rejects the claim that Azaria has shown remorse. In a letter to the defence minister, Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir and other senior officers said Azaria “has refrained from expressing remorse and taking responsibility for his actions, even a decade after his conviction”. 

Azaria has said as much himself. In 2018, months after leaving prison, he told Israel Hayom he had “no remorse whatsoever” and would act the same way again.

Katz called the pardon a “right, humane and fitting decision” and said Azaria had been on a “complex operational mission”. Katz also wrote on X that it sent a message to soldiers and their families: “We do not abandon our fighters.” 

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Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said: “Cancelling the criminal record of someone who killed a terrorist makes me emotional and very happy.” He urged Herzog to grant a similar pardon to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is on trial for corruption. 

A military court convicted Azaria of manslaughter in 2017 and sentenced him to 18 months in prison. Prosecutors had sought three to five years. Then Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot later cut the sentence by four months.  Azaria walked free in May 2018 after serving just nine months. 

Israel’s political leadership rallied behind him from the start. Netanyahu called for Azaria to be pardoned immediately after the verdict. After his release, settlers gave him a hero’s welcome in Hebron. 

In 2019 he demonstrated outside a military court in support of soldiers on trial for beating Palestinians in their custody. 

Palestinians condemned the sentence at the time. Issa Karaka, the Palestinian minister for prisoners’ affairs, called it a “joke”. Al-Sharif’s family dismissed the trial as a “farce” designed to improve Israel’s international image rather than deliver justice. 

The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the shooting as an “extrajudicial execution” and a “war crime”. The UN human rights office described the sentence as “excessively lenient” and warned that it risked “reinforcing the culture of impunity”. 

The conviction was a rare case of a military court ruling against a soldier for a killing in the field. Rights groups warned at the time that it was the exception rather than the rule. 

The legal rights centre Adalah noted that more than two years after Israel’s 2014 assault on Gaza, not one soldier had been indicted for suspected violations of international law, including the killing and wounding of civilians.

In July 2024, the US State Department barred Azaria and his immediate family from entering the United States over his “involvement in a gross violation of human rights, namely an extrajudicial killing in the West Bank”.

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