The Israeli army has dismissed an officer, who ordered the use of live ammunition during a Palestinian protest on the day President Mahmoud Abbas asked for UN membership last month, DPA reported.
"The officer was removed from his command due to a number of operational and disciplinary incidents," an Israeli military spokeswoman in Tel Aviv said Monday.
Israel had prepared for months for expected mass demonstrations around the date Abbas was scheduled to submit his historic application for Palestine to become a UN member state.
Wary that any escalation could spark a new round of violence, or even a third Palestinian uprising, its army had instructed officers to avoid casualties as much as possible and use minimal force.
Troops were equipped with common and less common non-lethal riot dispersal means, including stink bombs.
On September 23, when Abbas submitted the UN bid, an Israeli force near Nablus, on the northern West Bank, had tried to separate radical Jewish settlers from an outpost and Palestinian protesters from a nearby village.
The commander ordered the force to advance, when, according to an internal military investigation, he should have ordered a halt because the protesters were already backing off.
As the soldiers advanced, they found themselves endangered since they were outnumbered by rock-throwing demonstrators. The force then opened fire, killing one Palestinian.
The Palestinian was the only fatality of the demonstrations that accompanied the UN bid, despite previous fears of widespread violence.
The officer had had previous problems with discipline and the decision to dismiss him was based not only on the event in question, a military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, added.
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