You do not shoot a bound, blindfolded, unarmed man. It is that simple. It is illegal, and it is immoral.

At least he STILL encourages soldiers to join a combat unit. He shouldn't have been treated that way. The first impression of a soldier is normally the right impression. He made a mistake and didn't deserve such harsh punishment.

We must be crazy. They captured and killed our sons. And we humiliate our soldier who fired a rubber bullet at a detainee's foot? Curious what he was being detained for. YNET doesn't seem to investigate that.

Ethics or even more against JEWISH moral behavior than you should refuse. The same for soldiers or police officers kicking out Jews from their property. This soldier is accountable for every shot he fired. And every soldier kicking Jews out of their home will also be held accountable.

what if he was told to rap, burn down a house, fire at an elderly or a child? if he cant see the moral difference between a moral order and a criminal one, he should go to jail.

so revenge should be taken on a blindfolded man with his hands tied behind his back for a completely unrelated incident? yeah, proud warriors are the soldiers who will do things like this. the idf should treat criminals like criminals and that is exactly what this soldier is. as for his, "i was just following orders" excuse... i dont think i need to go further.

But so did his officer. The "I was only obeying orders" defense is no defense, but that does not absolve the commanding officer of blame. And that is actually L's only point here. Why should he be the only one to bear the brunt of this? The commanding officer, who gave the order, is equally guilty, yet he got no punishment at all. This is (just part of) what's wrong with our military justice system.

well, then he fires. at a child, eldery or whoever. that's how an army work. good morning. but in the israely army such orders are not given (this one was a misunderstanding). The punishment is not correct, measured at army standards. For a misunderstood order, both, the officer and the soldier have to be warned.

not much idea what happened, huh? he did NOT "shoot". that's a lawfact according to geneve conv. - if you like it or not.

Rami, habibi, think very carefully before you mention the word 'morals'.

"Crime" is a big word that obscures what really happened. The Left wingers and Arabs were throwing rocks and fire bombs. These are real crimes called "attempted murder" and "attempt to cause grievous bodily harm". The soldier did not "shoot" anyone in the usual meaning of the word, as anyone without an agenda would understand it. Shooting is when you take a real bullet and aim at someone to kill them. What the soldier did was discharge a rubber ball between the legs of a criminal who just tried to murder him. The soldier had the bad luck that the rubber ball hit the criminal's toe. The criminal was seen walking a day later. What we really have is Ehud Barak betraying his soldiers. Just like he let Madhat Yussuf bleed to death, Barak put the soldier in an impossible situation. All Barak had to do is send the YSM with orders to handle the rioters like they handled little girls in Amona and there will be no more riots in Naalin.

Our soldiers have to put up with fire bombs and rocks thrown at them. Of course it would make the most placid soldier to feel some form of revulsion towards the people who are trying to hurt you at the very least or trying to kill you. We still have one of the most moral army's in the world, that is when they are not throwing Jews out of their homes.

Bad things happen in all wars. Soldiers make errors in judgement, sometimes do the wrong thing, for whatever motives. That's what war is. The actual incident is not really what this story is about. This is part of a propaganda campaign to discredit the IDF, to show the supposed ''immorality'' of ''occupation'' etc. It's not much different than the effort to demonize ''settlers'' (another word I don't care for). It is political correctness gone crazy. Only the world's democracies get this kind of treatment. Abuses by the dictatorships are most generally ignored or down-played.

first of all it was not a war it was riot control, he was unarmed and was no threat, just admit these soldiers acted out of a lack of basic human ethics. They acted from their animal lusts to have FUN. They should not be warned at all but be send to jail without trial for violating IDF and Torah codes.

Shame this soldier cant tell the truth in fear of incrimination and more jail time from his superiors! Olmert releases hundreds of prisoners, one in particular that murders little children, but jails an Israeli soldier for causing a blister on some punks toe......despite the fact that the Palastinians were rioting at the time, and that the soldier had aimed at the feet! These terrorists need to be taught a lesson and i would of done worse than shoot at the feet if i had Molotov cocktails and rocks thrown at me! All the bleeding hearts here seem to forget that these people want us dead and theres a war going on! Like Terry said, this whole episode is being used by the government to back its peace claims, that we are too blame for its failure. A complete and utter falsehood! The Fatah PA Charter proves that!

Firstly, I am surprised to see you refer to a "half breed" (Rami from palestine) as "habibi". However, it is consistent with your inbred mongrel racism that you seem to think that a Palestinian cannot use the concept "morals" without some sense of irony. All this from the woman who calls for "half breeds" to be executed. Sickening. In the guise of some form of veneer of western values, the comments issuing from your fingers are some of the most grotesque to issue from the racist demi-state of Israel.

The worst part of the story is that the IDF knew about the incident and decided to do nothing until a video surfaced 2 weeks later. Then, they completely changed attitude and started treating the soldier as a criminal. The incident itself is not so atrocious; it was just a rubber bullet shot in the foot. The two real troubling elements are that 1) the Israeli soldiers will shoot when told so even when the order, as seen here, is evidently senseless and perhaps even when the shooting would constitute war crime. 2) There are efforts in the IDF to cover-up such incidents.

This article made me feel so sympathised with L., I even almost forgot all Palestinian kids who killed in the last 20 years of Intifada. Get real Ynet, he is the real face of your Army. This happens all the time, the only difference is that there were a Camera. And ""works well under pressure and is disciplined". WOW.

You know he did not even kill the guy. So let him go and tell him not to do it again. End of story, all the people that defame him would poop your pants if you even came close to having to stdo his job. Its a war people make mistakes

Isn't this what Nuernberg was supposed to be all about? How soon the criminals forget! TATA

None of this would happen if media and politics stay out.

Israel has become so politically correct that we are afraid of hurting the enemy. Too bad it was only a rubber bullet...

then the IDF could just shoot people and not have to worry about pesky accountability, bravo! they could be just like hamas.

It's only wrong when you get caught ..!

Hypocrite. When was the last time the PA took disciplinary action against their own miscreants? And I don't mean those accused of collobaration. Remember Arafat's 'revolving door policy'?