Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman is calling for a probe of advice by the far-left B’Tselem NGO, urging IDF soldiers at the southern front to refuse orders to defend Israel’s border with Gaza.
Liberman said Sunday he would ask Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit to look into the possibility of charging the anti-Israel organization with incitement to disobedience.
“This subversive and impermanent organization, together with those who hate Israel and the international media are trying to delegitimize our soldiers who are acting in a legal and moral manner, and who are in a complicated situation,” Liberman tweeted. “We will put an end to this.”
B’Tselem defended its actions, saying the use of live fire to disperse demonstrators is illegal under Section 110 of the Israeli penal code. The organization added the defense minister’s attempt to launch an investigation into the organization will bear no fruit. “The defense minister is the one inciting to break the law and it’s good that the attorney general will not have the opportunity to officially determine this,” the organization said in a statement.
The defense minister also told reporters that the Hamas terrorist organization bears “full responsibility for everything that happens in Gaza, and on the border,” including the deaths of protesters.
An Arab photographer was among those who were killed Friday during the second Hamas-driven swarm along the security fence, reportedly while shooting film some distance from the fence. Although he was wearing a flak jacket identifying him as a journalist, it was difficult to see due to the thick, oily black smoke from the thousands of burning tires, impeding visibility. Moreover, according to Liberman, the photographer also endangered himself needlessly: he was flying a photography drone above the Israeli soldiers, in direct defiance of security regulations and against the warnings he had received from the IDF.
“Hamas has used both journalists and ambulances to carry out terror attacks dozens of times,” Liberman said in an interview with Reshet Bet. “Whoever flies a drone over IDF forces – we will not take any chances. We warned everyone in advance. We gave warnings in Arabic, Hebrew and English. Whoever endangers his life does so at his own risk.”
Liberman also noted that all the demonstrators near the security fence in Gaza are being paid by Hamas. “Those who try to infiltrate through the border are members of the military wing of Hamas,” he said.
He added that the demonstrators are not calling for peace, or for an improvement in the quality of life in Gaza. “No one has spoken about economics or coexistence,” Liberman pointed out. “All the speeches are about the destruction of the State of Israel and the return of the “refugees” to Tel Aviv, Haifa and Yafo (Jaffa).”
He also noted with some irony that neither the United Nations Security Council, the UN Secretary-General and the Arab League called for meetings this weekend, despite the fact that hundreds of men, women and children were killed in Syria, many of them in a suspected chemical attack.