Collateral Damage

Lieut. General Moshe Yaalon is used to visiting wounded Israeli soldiers in hospitals. But the tousle-haired 22-year-old at whose bedside the chief of Israel's army sat last week was a civilian, and it wasn't a Palestinian bullet that severed an artery in his left leg and destroyed his right knee. An Israeli soldier shot Gil Naamati as he protested at the section of the "security fence" that cuts through the West Bank village of Masha. Naamati was hit by live ammunition after he clipped a piece of razor wire. "You shouldn't have done that," Yaalon said quietly. "I know," Naamati replied, shrugging, "but it's not a capital offense."

That depends. The shooting of Naamati by a Golani Brigade trooper sparked a debate among Israelis about the rules that apply when their soldiers open fire with potentially lethal force — particularly along the controversial new route of the security fence — and when Israeli protesters might be the target. Under the army's rules of engagement, incongruously code-named Purple Lilac, issued at the start of the three-year intifadeh, soldiers can use live ammunition only when they believe their lives are threatened. Human-rights groups say large numbers of unarmed Palestinians have been shot without justification during the intifadeh and that the army does little to investigate the deaths and injuries. But it took the wounding of an Israeli, and the son of a local Labor Party politician at that, to touch a nerve among the Israeli public. Even right-wing newspapers ran editorials condemning the shooting. Parliamentarians called an emergency debate and the army instituted two separate inquiries. "The whole chain of command should go to jail," says Avshalom Vilan, a leftist lawmaker and friend of the Naamati family. "We need a trial so people will understand this is a thing that the state can't accept."

Naamati knew the rules of engagement: his three years of military service ended just a month before the shooting. As he stood at the fence in Masha, he believed he was safe because he and the 20 other Israeli and foreign protesters presented no danger to the soldiers 30 m away, even after the troops fired warning shots. Then came the bullets to his legs. His injuries were so severe that doctors pumped 15 L of blood into him as they tried to stem the bleeding. The appendix to Purple Lilac dealing with the West Bank fence authorizes soldiers to warn anyone who tries to cross or damage the barrier — and to shoot them if they ignore the warning. The new rule, they say, was designed for potential Palestinian suicide bombers who might try to break through.

	We need a trial so people will understand this is a thing that the state can't accept. — AVSHALOM VILAN, lawmaker and friend of the Naamati family

Most Israelis, including Naamati, say the fence is an important defense against suicide bombers. But many argue it should have been built along the old demarcation line between the West Bank and Israel. Instead, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon snaked the fence into the West Bank to incorporate Israeli settlements and to take advantage of more easily defensible topography. The fence is already 165 km long; work is under way on a new section around Jerusalem and south to Hebron, and there are plans for an eastern fence probably along the heights above the Jordan Valley. Palestinians charge that the route cuts villages off from their fields and hems in some communities between the Israeli border and the fence, the gates of which are often shut for days.

Any challenge to the fence angers Israeli government officials. Gideon Ezra, a cabinet minister, defends the soldiers. "They shot at [Naamati] because they thought he was a danger to Israel," Ezra says. But Prime Minister Sharon criticized the shooting in a cabinet session last week, arguing that the army should find a non-lethal means of handling protests. The fence, after all, is a vital part of Sharon's plan to pull back his forces and evacuate some West Bank settlements to create a "disengagement" line between Palestinians and Israelis. TIME has learned that Sharon has made no fewer than eight reconnaissance visits to its route. If "disengagement" is to work, the army will need to figure out a gentler way to grapple with protesters like Gil Naamati.