Nine IDF reservist soldiers and their platoon commander had been fired from their combat positions for illegally opening fire toward Gaza while listening to a reading of the Purim Scroll of Esther on Friday, the military announced on Sunday afternoon.
The nine soldiers will all be confined to a military base for 28 days, an in-between result limiting their movement but which falls short of military prison time.
Further, the company commander above the platoon commander received a formal censure in his file.
The decisions were made as part of a court martial held by the brigade and battalion commanders above the other commanders.
In the video which circulated on Friday, the reservists can be seen firing toward Gaza territory upon hearing the name “Haman” (the antagonist of the Jewish people from the biblical Purim story), read aloud by a fellow combat fighter, who was reading the scroll as per the Purim tradition.
The combat fighters were pulled already on Saturday from Gaza border security duty.
The IDF said that the incident was against the military’s fundamental values and was especially problematic for combat border security personnel.
Increase of problematic disciplinary incidents in IDF
There has been an increase in a variety of problematic disciplinary incidents the longer the war has dragged on.
Recently, there was a video of IDF soldiers pushing a Palestinian car down a hill for no apparent reason, leading to a criminal probe being opened. This is without getting into the increasing number of criminal probes against IDF soldiers for potential violent incidents, including beating Palestinian detainees.
Israel regularly presents its probes and prosecutions of its own soldiers as a reason why the International Criminal Court probe against it is invalid.