Although former GSS head Ami Ayalon said that the recent fatal shooting by IDF soldiers of an unarmed Arab youth was totally illegal and unjustified \"with the black flag of illegality hovering over it,\" journalist Amos Harel says that the case was not so simple as it originally appeared to be. Writing in Ha\'aretz today, Harel said, \"The investigation into the shooting shows just how complicated the situation can be for IDF troops and officers in the territories, and how the color of the black flag mentioned by [Ayalon] can change its hue.\" The incident in question involved stoning attacks on Israeli citizens and soldiers by a group of Arab youths near Shechem. When the soldiers started advancing on the Arabs, they did not back off but rather continued throwing the large rocks. \"I understood they were trying to draw me into an ambush,\" one of the officers later said, and then fired warning shots in the air. Suddenly, 20 meters away, a person jumped up from behind a rock; the twilight hour prevented the soldiers from adequately identifying him or seeing if he was armed.
The officer remembered a similar incident some months before when Lt. (res.) Eyal Sela was shot and killed after being drawn into an ambush, and said that he now felt his troops were in danger. He therefore fired two shots at the suspicious figure and seriously wounded what turned out to be a 15-year-old youth. An army helicopter evacuated him to a hospital, where he later died. Col. Yossi Adiri decided that the shooting was justified, but the IDF Yesha commander, Brig.-Gen. Gershon Yitzchak, who received differing opinions on the matter, asked Adiri to further his inquiry before final conclusions are drawn. Ha\'aretz quoted a senior officer who reviewed the inquiry findings saying, \"If the situation were the same tomorrow, I would want my troops to behave exactly the same way - and remain alive.\"
The officer remembered a similar incident some months before when Lt. (res.) Eyal Sela was shot and killed after being drawn into an ambush, and said that he now felt his troops were in danger. He therefore fired two shots at the suspicious figure and seriously wounded what turned out to be a 15-year-old youth. An army helicopter evacuated him to a hospital, where he later died. Col. Yossi Adiri decided that the shooting was justified, but the IDF Yesha commander, Brig.-Gen. Gershon Yitzchak, who received differing opinions on the matter, asked Adiri to further his inquiry before final conclusions are drawn. Ha\'aretz quoted a senior officer who reviewed the inquiry findings saying, \"If the situation were the same tomorrow, I would want my troops to behave exactly the same way - and remain alive.\"