The father of the soldier currently on trial for shooting a wounded Arab terrorist in Hevron last month spoke to the press on Thursday, after a hearing in which his son's arrest was extended yet again by another five days.
On Thursday morning the military prosecutor officially served an indictment on manslaughter charges against the soldier. He has testified he shot over concerns that the terrorist - who minutes earlier with an accomplice stabbed and wounded a soldier - was moving to detonate a hidden bomb belt. Other soldiers at the scene, a Magen David Adom (MDA) investigative committee and a CID officer have all confirmed that concerns of a bomb belt had not been ruled out.
Speaking to reporters outside the court, the soldier's father said, "I ask - return my child home to me. He didn't do anything, he defended, he did his duty."
"The state is obsessive about this child. All he did was defend the state. He was sent by the army to defend you all. All of us. And today the state is against him, and against all IDF soldiers," said the concerned father.
He added, "I don't understand it: how can you accuse someone of manslaughter when he is neutralizing a terrorist? A terrorist who tried to murder beforehand. I turn to the entire world, to all the citizens in this country: what have we come to? Someone needs to wake up already in this country. We can't take it anymore."
In the hearing at the Jaffa military court, the soldier's lawyers opposed the arrest extension and the indictment. Attorney Eyal Besserglick, one of the soldier's lawyers, asked to release him from his arrest.
"This was an incident of a combined terror attack with suspicions of a bomb. In this explosive situation, that was the danger which he found himself in," Besserglick said of his client.
Also defending the soldier was Attorney Ilan Katz, who said the soldier does not pose a threat and does not have a weapon, and therefore should not remain under arrest on an open base.
He also noted that the pathological report presented by the prosecutor which showed the soldier's shot killed the terrorist did not prove anything else beyond that, adding, "we see that this report is more lacking than it is complete."